Philip Morris To Pay $10.1B in ‘Lights’ Case

Illinois Circuit Court Judge Nicholas G. Byron found Philip Morris Inc. liable in a class-action consumer fraud lawsuit and ordered the company to pay $10.1 billion for failing to inform consumers that its “light” cigarettes were not less harmful than regular cigarettes.

Philip Morris said it would appeal the verdict. Byron said the company would have to post a $12 billion bond to do so.

Byron handed down the 11-figure award after determining that Philip Morris violated the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act and Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act by marketing “light” cigarettes as posing less health risk than regular cigarettes when evidence demonstrated that, in reality, light cigarettes are more harmful than their regular counterparts.

“The Court recognizes that punitive damages are not favored in the law and this Court is careful not to award such damages improperly or unwisely,” Byron wrote in his opinion in the case, captioned as Price v. Philip Morris Inc. “However, the course of conduct by Philip Morris related to its fraud in this case is outrageous, both because Philip Morris’ motive was evil and [because] the acts showed a reckless disregard for consumers’ rights.”

“Philip Morris internal documents and the testimony offered at trial demonstrate that Philip Morris, prior to the launch of Marlboro Lights and Cambridge Lights, knew that smokers adjusted their smoking behavior through largely unconscious means so as to receive the same dose of nicotine and tar from a light cigarette as from a regular cigarette,” Byron wrote in a 51-page opinion. “In fact, the testimony and evidence clearly establish that Marlboro Lights and Cambridge Lights were specifically designed in such a way as to reduce the machine-measured tar and nicotine delivery while at the same time allowing consumers to extract the same levels of tar and nicotine from these products as they would extract from their regular Marlboro and Cambridge counterparts.”.

(via The Legal Intelligencer)