The US Supreme Court threw out a US$79.5 million award that a jury had ordered a cigarette maker to pay to a smoker's widow, a ruling that could bode well for other businesses seeking stricter limits on big-dollar verdicts.
The 5-4 decision on Tuesday was a victory for Altria Group Inc's Philip Morris USA, which contested an Oregon Supreme Court decision upholding the jury's verdict.
Yet the decision did not address a key argument made by Philip Morris and its supporters across a wide range of businesses -- that the size of the award was unconstitutionally large. They had hoped the court would limit the amount that can be awarded in punitive damage cases.
Instead, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in his majority opinion that the award to Mayola Williams could not stand because a jury may punish a defendant only for the harm done to the person who is suing, not to others whose cases were not before it.
"To permit punishment for injuring a nonparty victim would add a near standardless dimension to the punitive damages question," Breyer said.
The company had argued that the jury was encouraged to punish Philip Morris for health problems suffered by every Oregonian who smoked its cigarettes.
Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter, joined with Breyer.
Dissenting were justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, John Paul Stevens and Clarence Thomas. Ginsburg said Tuesday's ruling made punitive damages law even more confusing.
Jesse Williams died of lung cancer in 1997 at the age of 67. He had smoked two packs a day of Philip Morris-made Marlboros for 45 years.
His widow argued that the jury award was appropriate as it punished Philip Morris for a decades-long "massive market-directed fraud" that misled people into thinking cigarettes were not dangerous or addictive.
She won compensatory damages of US$800,000 and punitive damages of US$79.5 million in the fraud lawsuit she filed against Philip Morris. A state court previously cut the compensatory award to US$500,000, which is unaffected by Tuesday's ruling.
MARKET LEADERSHIP: Investors are flocking to Nvidia, drawn by the company’s long-term fundamntals, dominant position in the AI sector, and pricing and margin power Two years after Nvidia Corp made history by becoming the first chipmaker to achieve a US$1 trillion market capitalization, an even more remarkable milestone is within its grasp: becoming the first company to reach US$4 trillion. After the emergence of China’s DeepSeek (深度求索) sent the stock plunging earlier this year and stoked concerns that outlays on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure were set to slow, Nvidia shares have rallied back to a record. The company’s biggest customers remain full steam ahead on spending, much of which is flowing to its computing systems. Microsoft Corp, Meta Platforms Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc are
Luxury fashion powerhouse Prada SpA has acknowledged the ancient Indian roots of its new sandal design after the debut of the open-toe footwear sparked a furor among Indian artisans and politicians thousands of miles from the catwalk in Italy. Images from Prada’s fashion show in Milan last weekend showed models wearing leather sandals with a braided design that resembled handmade Kolhapuri slippers with designs dating back to the 12th century. A wave of criticism in the media and from lawmakers followed over the Italian brand’s lack of public acknowledgement of the Indian sandal design, which is named after a city in the
The US overtaking China as Taiwan’s top export destination could boost industrial development and wage growth, given the US is a high-income economy, an economist said yesterday. However, Taiwan still needs to diversify its export markets due to the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s administration, said Chiou Jiunn-rong (邱俊榮), an economics professor at National Central University. Taiwan’s exports soared to a record US$51.74 billion last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products and continued orders, with information and communication technology (ICT) and audio/video products leading all sectors. The US reclaimed its position as Taiwan’s top export market, accounting for
INVESTOR RESILIENCE? An analyst said that despite near-term pressures, foreign investors tend to view NT dollar strength as a positive signal for valuation multiples Morgan Stanley has flagged a potential 10 percent revenue decline for Taiwan’s tech hardware sector this year, as a sharp appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar begins to dent the earnings power of major exporters. In what appears to be the first such warning from a major foreign brokerage, the US investment bank said the currency’s strength — fueled by foreign capital inflows and expectations of US interest rate cuts — is compressing profit margins for manufacturers with heavy exposure to US dollar-denominated revenues. The local currency has surged about 10 percent against the greenback over the past quarter and yesterday breached
RSS