Court upholds $21-million verdict against cigarette company for selling death sticks to man who died of lung cancer; could open way for similar suits in Massachusetts

The Supreme Judicial Court contiguous upheld a jury's verdict that Philip Morris USA owes Fred Laramie's widow for getting him hooked connected cigarettes erstwhile helium was conscionable 13 and past feeding his wont until helium died of lung crab successful 2016.

The tribunal rejected an statement by Philip Morris that the assertion should ne'er person adjacent reached a assemblage due to the fact that of a 1998 colony betwixt the company, Massachusetts and different states implicit the harmful effects of its products, which the institution claimed meant cipher successful Massachusetts could ever again sue, nether the ineligible doctrine of "claims preclusion," that a ineligible matter, erstwhile settled, cannot beryllium brought up for reconsideration by 1 of the parties to the suit. The baccy institution argued that, arsenic a Massachusetts resident, Laramie's widow stock capable communal interests with the state, that she was fundamentally trying to re-litigate the 1998 settlement.

Wrong, the state's highest tribunal said. The state's suit, and those of different states, reflected wide public-health concerns astir the issues related to cigarettes. In contrast, Pamela Laramie of Lynn was not seeking damages connected behalf of each the survivors of dormant Massachusetts smokers, conscionable for herself and her family. And she sued nether the state's wrongful-death law, dissimilar the state, which had sued nether the state's consumer-protection law.

Thus, the plaintiff's involvement successful an grant of punitive damages was not a wide involvement successful punishing Philip Morris for selling defective Marlboro cigarettes oregon successful recovering for harms to the nationalist astatine large; rather, the plaintiff asserted a idiosyncratic interest, tied to punishing Philip Morris for the harm its behaviour specifically inflicted connected the plaintiff's husband, Laramie. See Williams, 549 U.S. astatine 353.

This involvement successful punitive damages was not adequately represented by the Attorney General successful the anterior action. To beryllium sure, wherever a State litigates connected behalf of its citizens' "common nationalist rights," judgments resulting from specified litigation volition hindrance the State's citizens and, arsenic to those rights, volition person preclusive effect. ... Such litigation does not, however, barroom citizens from recovering for injuries to backstage interests.

Here ... the plaintiff sought punitive damages for Laramie's decease nether the wrongful decease statute, and her grant was tethered to the harm the assemblage determined that Philip Morris had inflicted connected Laramie. By contrast, the Attorney General's involvement successful punitive damages successful the 1995 enactment stemmed from the user extortion act, G. L. c. 93A, and was tied to the harm Philip Morris had inflicted connected the Commonwealth, successful the signifier of accrued aesculapian expenditures incurred by the Commonwealth arsenic a effect of Philip Morris's unfair and deceptive commercialized practices.