Record Judgment Against Big Tobacco

July 15 -- A Miami jury ordered Big Tobacco to pay nearly $145 billion on Friday to sick Florida smokers, but the cigarette companies say they will never have to pay a dime.

The award — the largest punitive damages verdict ever rendered in a U.S. product liability trial — orders the nation’s top five cigarette makers to pay Florida residents who have developed health problems because of smoking, but the firms say they expect the decision will be reversed.

During the trial, tobacco attorneys argued that the award should only be in the millions, and that the 12-digit figure sought by plaintiffs would have all but bankrupted them.

“That’s a request for a death warrant for each of these five companies,” said lead tobacco attorney Dan Webb, who represents Philip Morris Inc., the largest U.S. tobacco company, as well as the world’s largest. “It’s more than financially destroyed. They’re gone.”

Webb told a news conference immediately after the verdict the money will never be paid because it will be overturned on appeal. He called it “a verdict in favor of no one” since the hundreds of thousands of plaintiffs who are said to be victims of the tobacco companies’s polices are not named in the suit.

A year ago, the same jury found the five tobacco companies guilty on a broad range of health and truthfulness issues and awarded a total of $12.7 million in compensatory damages to three named plaintiffs. Friday it deliberated less than five hours.

The jurors said that Philip Morris, the world’s largest tobacco company, should pay $73.96 billion, R.J. Reynolds should pay $36.28 billion, Brown & Williamson should pay $17.59 billion, Lorillard Tobacco should pay $16.25 billion and the Liggett Group should pay $790 million. It also said that two separate industry groups should pay a combined $1.47 million in damages.

The total: $144,871,473,549.

Wall Street appeared unphased by the verdict, as the companies’ stocks were down less than a dollar per share.