we are at it again. in fact, what everyone fails to realize is that the us government was in on this as well. they infact had a copy of the recipe for cigarettes and knew back then it was bad for your health. it was documented on the boxes of cigarettes. the 79.5 million is excessive, because what this is going to create and quick run of everyone for more! in fact, people you choose to light up a cigarette just like you chose a drink at the bar. if you went from 1 cigarette to 3 packs a day, is a choice that you made. not phillip morris! he smoked for 40 yrs — why should he get more under the punitive damage? what happens to all those that have gone before? can they up the ante?! NO and this one should be no more than any other. another crazy person that can’t lay claim that it was a choice.
so let’s try something a tad different:
we keep saying that this and that causes cancer. so for giggles: if i decided to eat cheddar cheese (as an example, let’s say that it causes cancer and it’s labeled), does that mean because i still eat it, i can sue the make of that cheddar cheese? um…um… i think not.
we need to stop blaming the industry for choices that we make. the company sure did not say smoke more. smokers can stop. it’s just a matter of saying and choosing to quit.
I’m with you on this one wudchuck. It amazes me that people win lawsuits in this area. For over 30 years cigarettes have said right on the package that they will kill you and are bad for you. You can’t really say the tobacco companies lied when they told you every time you bought a pack that their product will give you lung cancer.
At least the $9B original judgement was tossed and is now down in the millions. I’m hoping it gets overturned again and the Oregon Supreme Court declines to interfere a third time.
I agree – it is ridiculous to expect the tobacco company to pay that kind of money when someone smoked after warnings. It was the before the warnings “secrective hook ’em on nicotene and we’ve got them for life” attitude that should have to pay, but why would anyone even start to smoke after seeing the warnings? Because it was acceptable in society, it was “cool” in society, it was expected. Everyone got hooked, some could quit and some couldn’t. Fortunately now it is not “cool” or acccepted and it is getting better.
My mom died of COPD a few years ago…directly related to years and years of smoking. I should have had my dad hop on the “big tobacco-suit money train”…he’d have it made in the shade. These suits are ridiculous.
While I do not agree with the $79M damage amount, I would generally say ‘what goes around, comes around’ and also ‘you reap what you sow.’
Phillip Morris conducted itself with the utmost contempt for ethics, dignity, compassion, and utter contempt for human life itself. They not only knew that smoking was (extremely) adverse to your health, but they took active steps to cover that fact up, stalled and stalled and stalled again on putting warnings on packaging, not to mention the political lobbying, marketing to children, and all the other insidious actions taken in the name of profit. Cigarettes are supposed to claim their ONE BILLIONTH DEATH worldwide in the near future.
So, in short I really won’t shed any tears if the family of a dead ex-smoker squeezes a hundred million out of Phillip Morris in a bogus lawsuit.
how do we know that it was just phillip morris? is this the only company that sold cigarettes? was this the only brand he smoked? are there receipts that showed he purchased them over the past 40 yrs?
too many issues…in fact if you heard, phillip morris is going back to the supreme court over the original suit…
fact: the orig recipe was under lock in key in both the cigarette industry and the congress. but yet, they felt it was right to sue only the cigarette company…why not the FDA since after all, it is a drug that is legal to smoke…
I didn’t know smoking can cause cancer? Wow. I should stop smoking and contact a lawyer. I should sue the tobacco company. Hmmmm, I’ll do that as soon as I finish this lawsuit with Mcdonalds – I spilled hot coffee in my lap.
A point I wanted to clarify, please. Are you stating that these 1 Billion people would still be alive today if they weren’t smoking?
Lets face it, life kills all of us, what we can do though is possibly pick our very own method of dying. I don’t think that Phillip Morris or anyone else should be responsible if someone makes the choice to smoke full aware of the the risk of death that they take on.
What is bothersome about the Oregon Court keeping the punitive damages as they were is that it had been struck down twice before & still they ignored the US Supreme Court. I realize they said it was a state issue, but let’s get real.
This particular man started smoking 40 years ago, before the labels were put on cigarettes and after the companies knew nicotene was addictive and harmful.
The cigarette companies deserve to go bankrupt, and their old school executives deserve to be the ones losing their houses to foreclosure today. Too bad the latter won’t happen either.
um… it appears i have a twin who thinks i have or needed a job and got one…
fortunately, that person does not realize i have a great job and can check this forum while at work…
but back to the main issue:
we all have a choice and we all need to remind ourselves that as choices are made come consequences. why is our society today so eager to blame others and grab the money? we know that money does not grow on trees. we think that big companies have money, and yes most do. but does that mean we can just go after them?
i think if we put the shoe on the other foot and it was my company getting sued, i think the process would be rethought. again, the society we live in rather blame others instead of themselves — including the forged wudchuck blogger…
Everyone has lost focus on the real issue and it seems no court is willing to address the real problem. Nicotine!
You see smoking is bad and I do not belive anyone should have to pay for anothers choice. I also do not believe any person or company should be allowed to sell a product whether cigarettes, cigars, or even a food product, lace it with a chemical that will cause me to want their product even more and in many cases to the exclusion of anything else.
Soooo, I think the Tobacco companies should be caused top put this on their end product labels and in bold red letters.
” We at the Tobacco company have intentioanlly laced this product to cause you to want more of the product and increase our sales. We lace this product with nicotime which is a highly addictive drug much like cocaine. Once you start using nicotine it is very hard to quit using Nicotine. You could be hooked for life on our drug and buying cigarettes the rest of your life. By the way tobacco usgae is bad for your helth and causes Cancer.
Now if our government made them put this on the pack which is all completely true, let the hide go with the hair.
These settlements are pennies compared to what they have made.
So lets use the cheese example. If cheese could cause cancer, you eat it and for some reason you develop an irresistable urge to eat cheese about every hour for years.
Next thing you know you weigh 300 pounds and are miserable. You go to a doc and find out that the chees you have been eating was laced with an additive drug. Your OK with this knowing someone intentionally laced their product to hook you into buying.
Shame opn the courts and out legal system for still allowing these guys to get away with this. I hope they have to pay it out the nose and any one who disagrees is just plain not thinking.
Perfect example of the loony left coast. He smoked for 40 years, despite all the warnings. He was a janitor in a school. What warrants such ridiculous awards except the social progressive loony left judges at all levels of the Oregon court system?
Alex, I’m with you on this one. People have a right to decide how they want to die, and if they want to kill themselves with cigarettes – more power to them.
Yes the guy smoked for 40 years and that puts him smoking roughly 20 years before the cigarette companies were mandated to tell you their product kills you on the label. That also puts him continuing to smoke for 20 years after his cigarettes came in packages that said “Warning – cigarettes will kill you”. He could have stopped at any time if it was important enough to him.
This whole case has been outrageous from the beginning and makes me ashamed of the courts in my state.
Ah wudchuck and lastbat, are you the two remaining sane people in this land? BTW – great posts but now to read the others. All tobacco litigation is bogus. Dangers of smoking have been known for decades, if not a century or two. I hope this woman never sees a dime and I hope SCOTUS severely slaps around the Oregon Supreme Court on their (in)actions.
You’re only an Expert in being an Idiot and your post makes you look and sound incredibly stupid and narrow minded. That’s a pity too cause some people might have taken you seriously.
The tobacco company got people on something that was ADDICTIVE(and thus very hard to quit) and harmful to the point of causing death. And they did it before they told anyone about the consequences of smoking.
And they have profitted from it.
AND THEY DID IT INTENTIONALLY!!!
If that doesn’t warrant litigation, not much else should either.
Comon, poeple. Sometimes you have to cross political lines in favor of the facts.
Actually, Nancy, Expert isn’t all that far off. This case, if it’s the one that I think it is, was originally tried in the Multnomah County Circuit court. The jury came back with a multi-billion (that’s with a ‘B’) judgement against Phillip-Morris. If I recall correctly it was to the tune of $9B (though I may be off on the exact figure). The jury’s reasoning was that tobacco companies needed to be taught a lesson.
Thankfully the original figure was struck down but the Oregon Supreme Court’s own disregard for precedent set by SCOTUS is a product of the thinking here on the left coast. For all that we whine about not having a lot of big businesses headquartered here, and for all that we cater to the few we have, the NW is still very Liberal (capital ‘L’ intended) and somewhat anti-business. And for all that we enacted the first physician-assisted suicide law we don’t want to accept that people have the right to determine how to kill themselves without a doctor.
This judgement is out of hand and needs to be reversed. Not everyone in Oregon is an extreme left-winger. Some of us ducks like to stick to the middle of the stream.
For a non-smoker and somebody who hates being around smokers, I’m sure posting a lot in defense of tobacco companies.
TOYB – what about alcohol? It’s addictive and people have been selling it for thousands of years without telling us it can cause liver failure and so forth. What about the legal narcotics and opiates that were sold before we knew everything about them? What about caffiene – which causes heart attacks, migraines and other symptoms?
The fact is people have known for decades that cigarettes are bad for them and still continue to smoke and new smokers come on board every day. The tobacco industry is the only industry in America that is mandated by law to spend a certain amount of money dissuading people from using their products – and yet they still makes billions in profits every year. They are the only industry that has been sued for people not listening to them when they told their consumers their products could kill – and people still smoke.
Alcohol causes millions in damage every year and destroys thousands of lives. Why hasn’t anybody sued Jack Daniels? The furthest up the line we’ve gone is the dram shop. We’ll sue the bar but not the distiller, even though the distiller is the one that made the product that I chose to consume that caused me to ruin my life? This line of reasoning doesn’t take hold with alcohol and it shouldn’t take hold with cigarettes.
People have a natural right to determine how they are going to die. If they want to kill themselves with cigarettes that’s fine. And had these cases been brought about in the early ’80s this conversation would be different, but people have known the dangers of smoking for decades and that’s too much time to say “I didn’t know!” They knew, they knew for decades and they still decided to keep smoking. At that point they took their life into their own hands and they deserve nothing.
It’s called responsibility people – get used to it.
AGREED! lastbat – you said it best and i compliment it with the fact that our society is happy to get lawsuit happy and get all they can get or maybe the lawyers want more money in their pocket. truthfully, i think responsibility needs to be played not the addiction, because any addiction can be fixed!
Milo, one would have to have been hiding under a rock for the past few hundred years, especially the past few decades, to not know that tobacco contains nicotine and is an addictive substance. Putting such a label on the packs is not necessary – the packs are already labeled to tell the consumer that the product contained therein is deadly.
Since the education has been out there for decades there is no need for tobacco companies to do more. Tobacco companies already do more to dissuade their consumer base than any other industry in the history of mankind. With the companies actively trying to dissuade their current and future consumers from staying or becoming consumers anybody who decides to start using tobacco or decides to continue using tobacco is the idiot and deserves nothing.
All this from a non-user who listened to the tobacco companies when they told me I shoulnd’t use their products.
Here what you are saying however the Tobacco companies knew what they were doing and did it with the intent to hook people and sell more product by doing so and that is the issue i have with the entire thing. As far as people smoking knowing there are many things that come from that activity. They certainly can make their own choice knowing the dangers. I agree with you. They should not smoke however back to the original crime. No different than when the movie industry (before it was outlawed) placed a picture of a coke or pop corn and piped in pop corn cooking in the a/c system . Why to generate more sales. Illegally gained profits.
ok… so you put a label on the box. did you know that the FDA/Gov’t knew about this from day 1? don’t go blaming the industry when it even told folks about it. what about those who are doing it now?
do we give them a bundle of joy of $$$?
i think we just think everyone else is responsible and not our ownselves. he had been doing the smoking for 40 yrs.
next thing your going to tell me that we need to get the druggies to label there product and make them pay for those that die from it?! i don’t think so! afterall, we make choices some good and some bad and some can be fatal.
we don’t make the booze industry pay! why did we have to make the smoking industry pay?
That point has been made at least three times in this thread milo. The whole point is that all of this information has been widely publicized for decades so nobody in America has any reason to sue tobacco companies. People know the dangers and choose to use tobacco anyway. They know the dangers and choose to drink anyway. They know the dangers and choose to take drugs anyway. They know the dangers and drive without seatbelts while talking on cell phones, eating a hamburger and changing their pants. People can not plead ignorance. “Oh, the bad nasty company didn’t come clean until 1973 and here it is more than 30 years later and I didn’t know!” Give me a break.
It’s well past time the courts started forcing people to accept responsibility for their own actions. Stop picking on the tobacco companies, overturn the dram shop laws and overhaul the tort system. Because unless these people are being held down by employees of the tobacco companies and being forced to ingest their product it was their own free will that got them started and their own free will that keeps them using. Addicts can quit.
lastbat said it best but again, each person needs to start taking on their own responsibility. stop putting onto someone else.
if you make a left turn when you should have made a right turn. who is at fault for making the wrong turn? the car? the sun? the tire? it can’t be me can it?
here’s where the problem exists! nobody can truly take the responisibility of choices, even when they are bad. they love to take them when they are good.
Sure, alcohol and caffeine are addictive, but not to the same degree is nicotine.
Alcohol is addictive to a far smaller percentage of the people who use it. Caffeine’s addiction causes harm on a far smaller scale than nicotene does.
Slippery slopes do exist. We have decided as a society that alcohol and caffeine are not TOO SLIPPERY. But that does not, in my opinion, mean that what the tobacco industry did before labels were put on the packeges does not warrant litigation.
The tobacco industry has indeed been warning people for decades, but the point for THIS PARTICULAR LAWSUIT was that the man began smoking BEFORE the warnings were placed on the packages, and he began smoking AFTER the tobacco companies knew about the addictive nature and effects of nicotine. What’s more, the tobacco companies PROFITTED off of the increased sales they experienced by not telling people about it right away.
I agree 100% with the idea that anyone who started smoking AFTER the warnings began has NO RIGHT TO SUE.
However, I do believe that the tobacco companies are the ones who should shoulder the blame and take on the RESPONSIBILITY for what has happened to those(and, yes, the families of those) that started smoking BEFORE THE LABELS WERE PUT ON THE PACKAGES AND AFTER THE COMPANIES KNEW ABOUT THE EFFECTS AND ADDICTIVE NATURE OF NICOTINE.
So where does an older smoker’s responsibility begin TYOB? Since the information was out before the labels were required, and the labels have been on for over three decades, where does the responsibility of the smoker for their own health begin?
If they’d brought these cases in the late ’70s or early ’80s I’d be more sympathetic, but since they had decades to quit and decided not to they should not be allowed to sue.
Since it’s been shown that it takes 5 years or less for lungs to recover from even several decades of smoking, the 26 years this janitor had from the time his first pack of smokes had a warning label to the time he died was more than enough time for him to decide to quit and for his lungs to recover. He just didn’t quit and that was his choice.
problem tyob, is that the gov’t knew about nicotine from day 1. they sued the tobacco industry and won! what?! and the gov’t won?! truly the fallacy lies in that the gov’t allowed this from day one. they knew about nicotine. in fact i bet if you truly look at the industry, most folks did not realize the danger probably until later. so whose fault is it anyways? not the industry. we have seen tobacco smoking since the ages past — did you see those folks sue because they died from it? no! again, the knew the result of being responsible. it appears that now days, we don’t want to take responsibility. we have to force the issue of responsibility by law! this is the main issue. it was not the tobacco industry. they did not make you pick up the first smoke. one smoke probably does not get you hooked. if it did, then it be liked alchohol, but it’s not! the next thing your going to tell me that because it can’t be the person’s fault it’s bush’s fault! LOL! i don’t think so.
each individual action has a consequence associated with it, whether good or bad. nobody put that cigarette in your fingers and caused you to smoke it. nobody told you to take another. so again, don’t blame the industry when it was approved by the fda and the recipe was in hold w/congress who later decided after so many years to go after them.
congress was tired of those folks getting sick after years of smoking and then medicaid starting paying for the medical. it was costing the gov’t money. well, it should afterall they approved the recipe and even held the recipe w/congress.
so please! stop blaming the industry and start taking your own responsibility!
The key there is addictive. Very, very addictive. Sure it’s not IMPOSSIBLE to quit, but surely VERY difficult.
Some people have the will power to quit, and others do not.
The tobacco companies banked on that, and profitted from it. The preyed on the weak.
In my opinion, as a society, we should not allow that behavior by our corporate citizens. Those that exhibit that behavior should be punished, or others will follow suit.
so if it’s so addictive, then those who are on welfare are the same….so let’s sue the government to spend our money for those that can work but don’t intend to…they think that the gov’t has a money tree and is giving it freely!
they milking my tax money and making it harder for those that need to actually use the money for medicaid or social security.
responsible — um. check the dictionary. it does not have anything in their about addiction.
TYOB doesn’t want to commit to personal responsibility. TYOB wants an escape route.
It’s this simple – don’t buy cigarettes, don’t bum cigarettes, don’t smoke cigarettes and don’t hand around cigarette smoke. It’s the same thing alcoholics, cocaine addicts, meth addicts and heroine addicts do. They stop ingesting what they are addicted to. It truly is that simple. Stop ingesting. If it’s important enough to the addict they will quit. Until then they have every right to kill themselves in whatever way they desire – but not the right to sue the person supplying their poison of choice.
There are no “buts” (pun intended) about it. Yes nicotine is addictive and yes tobacco products are altered from pure tobacco to make them more addictive – but the information has been out there way too long for people to say it’s the tobacco companies’ fault they are sick. It’s a choice.
I read an article today on Yahoo that said stored in Ontario will no longer be allowed to display cigarettes; packs must be kept behind the counter or in a grayed-out display case so nobody can see the pack. This is on top of packs that by law must show graphic pictures of black lungs and rotted teeth in addition to a much harsher message than that required in the US. This is ridiculous. If people truly think tobacco is that bad make it illegal. I’m not for making it illegal, but I’m also not for picking on a perfectly legal industry either.
Hey, they’re telling people straight out not to use their product, that their product can kill them. If people still wish to use tobacco products after people told by the manufacturer that the product is bad, will kill them, they shouldn’t use it, they should do something else, never never never use tobacco, if after all that people still decide to use tobacco they could be lacing it with uranium for all I care because the consumer is doing something they know will kill them and the consumer needs to take responsibility for their own actions.
When you buy a new gun the instruction manual says to ensure that every gun is unloaded and clear (and provides instructions for how to do this safely), to never point a loaded weapon at anything you don’t intend to shoot and that guns have the potential to kill. If after all that somebody shoots themself in the head is the gun manufacturer guilty? This analogy is apt because the tobacco manufacturer actually gives more warnings than the gun manufacturer and the consumer still chooses to kill themself.
Dude. You keep bringing up the point that warnings have been around for too long, and then I keep bringing up the point that in this lawsuit, the guy started smoking before the warnings. What is your problem dude(or dudette)?
And then you say something like, “well he should have sued after the warnings were put on the packages and should not have waited all these years”… How was he supposed to sue if he wasn’t yet sick? He had to wait.
Then you say something like, “well, he should have just quit if he didn’t want to die from cigarettes”. Dude, cigarettes are addictive and VERY difficult to quit. That’s the whole point.
Well, that combined with the fact that the companies knew they were addictive, didn’t tell people, expected that a large number of people wouldn’t have the will power to quit, and that they would make a crapload of profit off them.
That’s preying on the weakest among us. It’s shameful, and the strongest among us have a duty to stop it.
I’m sure you’ll decide to throw more demagoguery at me again, but I think I’m done with you and won’t be responding anymore.
TOYB/TYOB – Promise? OK, this man started smoking in 1957, warnings first came out on the packages, in US in 1963. But that wasn’t the first we had heard of the discussion. Much easier to quit after 4-5-6 years than 40, but he chose not too.
Based on my personal experience (I’m a 20 + year x-smoker with an alcoholic brother) it IS apparently much easier to quit smoking than to quit drinking.
Yes, the tobacco companies have done everything they could to make us continue to use their product – that’s called free enterprise. But people that weigh the evidence and decide they want to quit can, those who think they’d rather continue to smoke do, that’s called free choice.
I still get mail from Marlboro offering coupons or contests, but every piece of it also has information on where to find their smoking cessation help on their website. I don’t see that on a can of Bud Light or bottle of Absolut!
When I die, as we all will, I do not want my family to sue anyone for the choices I made during my lifetime – they can just continue to work and support themselves, or I’ll come back and haunt them!
Sheila, I like that last bit and I’m going to add it to my will “If anybody sues on my behalf for something stupid after I die I will come back and haunt you.” I love it.
I think the sad thing is that tobacco companies are still allowed to alter tobacco to make it more addictive which makes their attempts at educating the public about the dangers point them to assistance in quitting VERY hypocritical.
It seems that there could be regulation preventing this practice. The tobacco companies now market to 3rd world countries to get their new customers.
Of course the tobacco industry’s messages to consumers are hypocritical! The law mandates them to be. Please name one other industry that is mandated by law to spend a certain amount of money actively dissuading their customers. You won’t be able to because their is no other industry with that mandate.
We need to leave the tobacco industry alone and let people kill themselves in whatever way they see fit.
well, now let’s step back and look at another picture.
he’s been smoking for 40 yrs. we try to say that he died based on the smoking addiction. what if he had not been smoking and died in the same 40 yrs? are we planning to sue someone because he died of something else? he could have died from diabetes type 2 – which i have found out that this is hereditary – so do we so our parents and grandparents? we did not ask for that gene to be passed along. so we need to stop blaming the big companies when we make choices. again, we or i make a choice then i need to live with the consequences.
again, we not sure what would have happened if he had not smoked. not sure if he might have died earlier or later. let’s stop the blame, because we made a bad choice.
WHY ARE TOBACCO PRODUCTS UN-REGULATED, STILL LEGAL, AND CONSUMED AT THE BLESSING OF THE GOVERNMENT, AND THE DEATH OF IT’S USERS .!!! Tobacco Industry inter-office memos and letters, now exposed through court order. “What we want to do this morning is to take a summary look at the smoking and health question, and then make a proposal to you, for a B&W project to counter the anti-cigarette forces. “Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the “body of fact” that exists…”It is also the means of establishing a controversy!”. source: Brown and Williamson confidential strategy proposal, “Smoking and Health” 1969! Yes 1969.. and they knew about the hazards long before that.Time to get real people,.. about tobacco death,.. and it’s continued acceptance in our society.
WHY ARE FAST FOOD PRODUCTS UN-REGULATED, STILL LEGAL, AND CONSUMED AT THE BLESSING OF THE GOVERNMENT, AND THE DEATH OF IT’S USERS .!!! Fast food Industry inter-office memos and letters, now exposed through court order. “What we want to do this morning is to take a summary look at the fast-foods and health question, and then make a proposal to you, for a B&W project to counter the anti-fast food forces. “Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the “body of fact” that exists…”It is also the means of establishing a controversy!”. source: Burger and Fries confidential strategy proposal, “Fast-foods and Health” 1969! Yes 1969.. and they knew about the hazards long before that.Time to get real people,.. about fast-food deaths from heart attacks and ,.. and it’s continued acceptance in our society.
we are at it again. in fact, what everyone fails to realize is that the us government was in on this as well. they infact had a copy of the recipe for cigarettes and knew back then it was bad for your health. it was documented on the boxes of cigarettes. the 79.5 million is excessive, because what this is going to create and quick run of everyone for more! in fact, people you choose to light up a cigarette just like you chose a drink at the bar. if you went from 1 cigarette to 3 packs a day, is a choice that you made. not phillip morris! he smoked for 40 yrs — why should he get more under the punitive damage? what happens to all those that have gone before? can they up the ante?! NO and this one should be no more than any other. another crazy person that can’t lay claim that it was a choice.
so let’s try something a tad different:
we keep saying that this and that causes cancer. so for giggles: if i decided to eat cheddar cheese (as an example, let’s say that it causes cancer and it’s labeled), does that mean because i still eat it, i can sue the make of that cheddar cheese? um…um… i think not.
we need to stop blaming the industry for choices that we make. the company sure did not say smoke more. smokers can stop. it’s just a matter of saying and choosing to quit.
I’m with you on this one wudchuck. It amazes me that people win lawsuits in this area. For over 30 years cigarettes have said right on the package that they will kill you and are bad for you. You can’t really say the tobacco companies lied when they told you every time you bought a pack that their product will give you lung cancer.
At least the $9B original judgement was tossed and is now down in the millions. I’m hoping it gets overturned again and the Oregon Supreme Court declines to interfere a third time.
And one more thing, it’s not even the smoker that’s making himself look like an idiot, it’s yet another greedy widow/family!
I agree – it is ridiculous to expect the tobacco company to pay that kind of money when someone smoked after warnings. It was the before the warnings “secrective hook ’em on nicotene and we’ve got them for life” attitude that should have to pay, but why would anyone even start to smoke after seeing the warnings? Because it was acceptable in society, it was “cool” in society, it was expected. Everyone got hooked, some could quit and some couldn’t. Fortunately now it is not “cool” or acccepted and it is getting better.
My mom died of COPD a few years ago…directly related to years and years of smoking. I should have had my dad hop on the “big tobacco-suit money train”…he’d have it made in the shade. These suits are ridiculous.
While I do not agree with the $79M damage amount, I would generally say ‘what goes around, comes around’ and also ‘you reap what you sow.’
Phillip Morris conducted itself with the utmost contempt for ethics, dignity, compassion, and utter contempt for human life itself. They not only knew that smoking was (extremely) adverse to your health, but they took active steps to cover that fact up, stalled and stalled and stalled again on putting warnings on packaging, not to mention the political lobbying, marketing to children, and all the other insidious actions taken in the name of profit. Cigarettes are supposed to claim their ONE BILLIONTH DEATH worldwide in the near future.
So, in short I really won’t shed any tears if the family of a dead ex-smoker squeezes a hundred million out of Phillip Morris in a bogus lawsuit.
how do we know that it was just phillip morris? is this the only company that sold cigarettes? was this the only brand he smoked? are there receipts that showed he purchased them over the past 40 yrs?
too many issues…in fact if you heard, phillip morris is going back to the supreme court over the original suit…
fact: the orig recipe was under lock in key in both the cigarette industry and the congress. but yet, they felt it was right to sue only the cigarette company…why not the FDA since after all, it is a drug that is legal to smoke…
Oh yea one more thing, I just recently got a job, so I wont be posting as often anymore!
Oh, NO! But that’s why I read this thing – can’t you still read and post at work??
Congratulations!
I didn’t know smoking can cause cancer? Wow. I should stop smoking and contact a lawyer. I should sue the tobacco company. Hmmmm, I’ll do that as soon as I finish this lawsuit with Mcdonalds – I spilled hot coffee in my lap.
A point I wanted to clarify, please. Are you stating that these 1 Billion people would still be alive today if they weren’t smoking?
Lets face it, life kills all of us, what we can do though is possibly pick our very own method of dying. I don’t think that Phillip Morris or anyone else should be responsible if someone makes the choice to smoke full aware of the the risk of death that they take on.
What is bothersome about the Oregon Court keeping the punitive damages as they were is that it had been struck down twice before & still they ignored the US Supreme Court. I realize they said it was a state issue, but let’s get real.
Cheese isn’t physically addictive, nicotene is.
This particular man started smoking 40 years ago, before the labels were put on cigarettes and after the companies knew nicotene was addictive and harmful.
The cigarette companies deserve to go bankrupt, and their old school executives deserve to be the ones losing their houses to foreclosure today. Too bad the latter won’t happen either.
um… it appears i have a twin who thinks i have or needed a job and got one…
fortunately, that person does not realize i have a great job and can check this forum while at work…
but back to the main issue:
we all have a choice and we all need to remind ourselves that as choices are made come consequences. why is our society today so eager to blame others and grab the money? we know that money does not grow on trees. we think that big companies have money, and yes most do. but does that mean we can just go after them?
i think if we put the shoe on the other foot and it was my company getting sued, i think the process would be rethought. again, the society we live in rather blame others instead of themselves — including the forged wudchuck blogger…
Everyone has lost focus on the real issue and it seems no court is willing to address the real problem. Nicotine!
You see smoking is bad and I do not belive anyone should have to pay for anothers choice. I also do not believe any person or company should be allowed to sell a product whether cigarettes, cigars, or even a food product, lace it with a chemical that will cause me to want their product even more and in many cases to the exclusion of anything else.
Soooo, I think the Tobacco companies should be caused top put this on their end product labels and in bold red letters.
” We at the Tobacco company have intentioanlly laced this product to cause you to want more of the product and increase our sales. We lace this product with nicotime which is a highly addictive drug much like cocaine. Once you start using nicotine it is very hard to quit using Nicotine. You could be hooked for life on our drug and buying cigarettes the rest of your life. By the way tobacco usgae is bad for your helth and causes Cancer.
Now if our government made them put this on the pack which is all completely true, let the hide go with the hair.
These settlements are pennies compared to what they have made.
So lets use the cheese example. If cheese could cause cancer, you eat it and for some reason you develop an irresistable urge to eat cheese about every hour for years.
Next thing you know you weigh 300 pounds and are miserable. You go to a doc and find out that the chees you have been eating was laced with an additive drug. Your OK with this knowing someone intentionally laced their product to hook you into buying.
Shame opn the courts and out legal system for still allowing these guys to get away with this. I hope they have to pay it out the nose and any one who disagrees is just plain not thinking.
Cheese isn’t addictive? Good thing to know.
Turn on your brain, I am glad you posted to remind us how feeble we are, and how we cannot make decisions on our own.
Please give me my noo-noo and change my diaper.
Perfect example of the loony left coast. He smoked for 40 years, despite all the warnings. He was a janitor in a school. What warrants such ridiculous awards except the social progressive loony left judges at all levels of the Oregon court system?
Alex, I’m with you on this one. People have a right to decide how they want to die, and if they want to kill themselves with cigarettes – more power to them.
Yes the guy smoked for 40 years and that puts him smoking roughly 20 years before the cigarette companies were mandated to tell you their product kills you on the label. That also puts him continuing to smoke for 20 years after his cigarettes came in packages that said “Warning – cigarettes will kill you”. He could have stopped at any time if it was important enough to him.
This whole case has been outrageous from the beginning and makes me ashamed of the courts in my state.
Ah wudchuck and lastbat, are you the two remaining sane people in this land? BTW – great posts but now to read the others. All tobacco litigation is bogus. Dangers of smoking have been known for decades, if not a century or two. I hope this woman never sees a dime and I hope SCOTUS severely slaps around the Oregon Supreme Court on their (in)actions.
You’re only an Expert in being an Idiot and your post makes you look and sound incredibly stupid and narrow minded. That’s a pity too cause some people might have taken you seriously.
To the loony east coast bias:
The tobacco company got people on something that was ADDICTIVE(and thus very hard to quit) and harmful to the point of causing death. And they did it before they told anyone about the consequences of smoking.
And they have profitted from it.
AND THEY DID IT INTENTIONALLY!!!
If that doesn’t warrant litigation, not much else should either.
Comon, poeple. Sometimes you have to cross political lines in favor of the facts.
Actually, Nancy, Expert isn’t all that far off. This case, if it’s the one that I think it is, was originally tried in the Multnomah County Circuit court. The jury came back with a multi-billion (that’s with a ‘B’) judgement against Phillip-Morris. If I recall correctly it was to the tune of $9B (though I may be off on the exact figure). The jury’s reasoning was that tobacco companies needed to be taught a lesson.
Thankfully the original figure was struck down but the Oregon Supreme Court’s own disregard for precedent set by SCOTUS is a product of the thinking here on the left coast. For all that we whine about not having a lot of big businesses headquartered here, and for all that we cater to the few we have, the NW is still very Liberal (capital ‘L’ intended) and somewhat anti-business. And for all that we enacted the first physician-assisted suicide law we don’t want to accept that people have the right to determine how to kill themselves without a doctor.
This judgement is out of hand and needs to be reversed. Not everyone in Oregon is an extreme left-winger. Some of us ducks like to stick to the middle of the stream.
For a non-smoker and somebody who hates being around smokers, I’m sure posting a lot in defense of tobacco companies.
TOYB – what about alcohol? It’s addictive and people have been selling it for thousands of years without telling us it can cause liver failure and so forth. What about the legal narcotics and opiates that were sold before we knew everything about them? What about caffiene – which causes heart attacks, migraines and other symptoms?
The fact is people have known for decades that cigarettes are bad for them and still continue to smoke and new smokers come on board every day. The tobacco industry is the only industry in America that is mandated by law to spend a certain amount of money dissuading people from using their products – and yet they still makes billions in profits every year. They are the only industry that has been sued for people not listening to them when they told their consumers their products could kill – and people still smoke.
Alcohol causes millions in damage every year and destroys thousands of lives. Why hasn’t anybody sued Jack Daniels? The furthest up the line we’ve gone is the dram shop. We’ll sue the bar but not the distiller, even though the distiller is the one that made the product that I chose to consume that caused me to ruin my life? This line of reasoning doesn’t take hold with alcohol and it shouldn’t take hold with cigarettes.
People have a natural right to determine how they are going to die. If they want to kill themselves with cigarettes that’s fine. And had these cases been brought about in the early ’80s this conversation would be different, but people have known the dangers of smoking for decades and that’s too much time to say “I didn’t know!” They knew, they knew for decades and they still decided to keep smoking. At that point they took their life into their own hands and they deserve nothing.
It’s called responsibility people – get used to it.
AGREED! lastbat – you said it best and i compliment it with the fact that our society is happy to get lawsuit happy and get all they can get or maybe the lawyers want more money in their pocket. truthfully, i think responsibility needs to be played not the addiction, because any addiction can be fixed!
Milo, one would have to have been hiding under a rock for the past few hundred years, especially the past few decades, to not know that tobacco contains nicotine and is an addictive substance. Putting such a label on the packs is not necessary – the packs are already labeled to tell the consumer that the product contained therein is deadly.
Since the education has been out there for decades there is no need for tobacco companies to do more. Tobacco companies already do more to dissuade their consumer base than any other industry in the history of mankind. With the companies actively trying to dissuade their current and future consumers from staying or becoming consumers anybody who decides to start using tobacco or decides to continue using tobacco is the idiot and deserves nothing.
All this from a non-user who listened to the tobacco companies when they told me I shoulnd’t use their products.
Here what you are saying however the Tobacco companies knew what they were doing and did it with the intent to hook people and sell more product by doing so and that is the issue i have with the entire thing. As far as people smoking knowing there are many things that come from that activity. They certainly can make their own choice knowing the dangers. I agree with you. They should not smoke however back to the original crime. No different than when the movie industry (before it was outlawed) placed a picture of a coke or pop corn and piped in pop corn cooking in the a/c system . Why to generate more sales. Illegally gained profits.
ok… so you put a label on the box. did you know that the FDA/Gov’t knew about this from day 1? don’t go blaming the industry when it even told folks about it. what about those who are doing it now?
do we give them a bundle of joy of $$$?
i think we just think everyone else is responsible and not our ownselves. he had been doing the smoking for 40 yrs.
next thing your going to tell me that we need to get the druggies to label there product and make them pay for those that die from it?! i don’t think so! afterall, we make choices some good and some bad and some can be fatal.
we don’t make the booze industry pay! why did we have to make the smoking industry pay?
Now that is a good point you make.
That point has been made at least three times in this thread milo. The whole point is that all of this information has been widely publicized for decades so nobody in America has any reason to sue tobacco companies. People know the dangers and choose to use tobacco anyway. They know the dangers and choose to drink anyway. They know the dangers and choose to take drugs anyway. They know the dangers and drive without seatbelts while talking on cell phones, eating a hamburger and changing their pants. People can not plead ignorance. “Oh, the bad nasty company didn’t come clean until 1973 and here it is more than 30 years later and I didn’t know!” Give me a break.
It’s well past time the courts started forcing people to accept responsibility for their own actions. Stop picking on the tobacco companies, overturn the dram shop laws and overhaul the tort system. Because unless these people are being held down by employees of the tobacco companies and being forced to ingest their product it was their own free will that got them started and their own free will that keeps them using. Addicts can quit.
lastbat said it best but again, each person needs to start taking on their own responsibility. stop putting onto someone else.
if you make a left turn when you should have made a right turn. who is at fault for making the wrong turn? the car? the sun? the tire? it can’t be me can it?
here’s where the problem exists! nobody can truly take the responisibility of choices, even when they are bad. they love to take them when they are good.
in response to lastbat:
Sure, alcohol and caffeine are addictive, but not to the same degree is nicotine.
Alcohol is addictive to a far smaller percentage of the people who use it. Caffeine’s addiction causes harm on a far smaller scale than nicotene does.
Slippery slopes do exist. We have decided as a society that alcohol and caffeine are not TOO SLIPPERY. But that does not, in my opinion, mean that what the tobacco industry did before labels were put on the packeges does not warrant litigation.
The tobacco industry has indeed been warning people for decades, but the point for THIS PARTICULAR LAWSUIT was that the man began smoking BEFORE the warnings were placed on the packages, and he began smoking AFTER the tobacco companies knew about the addictive nature and effects of nicotine. What’s more, the tobacco companies PROFITTED off of the increased sales they experienced by not telling people about it right away.
I agree 100% with the idea that anyone who started smoking AFTER the warnings began has NO RIGHT TO SUE.
However, I do believe that the tobacco companies are the ones who should shoulder the blame and take on the RESPONSIBILITY for what has happened to those(and, yes, the families of those) that started smoking BEFORE THE LABELS WERE PUT ON THE PACKAGES AND AFTER THE COMPANIES KNEW ABOUT THE EFFECTS AND ADDICTIVE NATURE OF NICOTINE.
Responsibility goes BOTH ways.
So where does an older smoker’s responsibility begin TYOB? Since the information was out before the labels were required, and the labels have been on for over three decades, where does the responsibility of the smoker for their own health begin?
If they’d brought these cases in the late ’70s or early ’80s I’d be more sympathetic, but since they had decades to quit and decided not to they should not be allowed to sue.
Since it’s been shown that it takes 5 years or less for lungs to recover from even several decades of smoking, the 26 years this janitor had from the time his first pack of smokes had a warning label to the time he died was more than enough time for him to decide to quit and for his lungs to recover. He just didn’t quit and that was his choice.
problem tyob, is that the gov’t knew about nicotine from day 1. they sued the tobacco industry and won! what?! and the gov’t won?! truly the fallacy lies in that the gov’t allowed this from day one. they knew about nicotine. in fact i bet if you truly look at the industry, most folks did not realize the danger probably until later. so whose fault is it anyways? not the industry. we have seen tobacco smoking since the ages past — did you see those folks sue because they died from it? no! again, the knew the result of being responsible. it appears that now days, we don’t want to take responsibility. we have to force the issue of responsibility by law! this is the main issue. it was not the tobacco industry. they did not make you pick up the first smoke. one smoke probably does not get you hooked. if it did, then it be liked alchohol, but it’s not! the next thing your going to tell me that because it can’t be the person’s fault it’s bush’s fault! LOL! i don’t think so.
each individual action has a consequence associated with it, whether good or bad. nobody put that cigarette in your fingers and caused you to smoke it. nobody told you to take another. so again, don’t blame the industry when it was approved by the fda and the recipe was in hold w/congress who later decided after so many years to go after them.
congress was tired of those folks getting sick after years of smoking and then medicaid starting paying for the medical. it was costing the gov’t money. well, it should afterall they approved the recipe and even held the recipe w/congress.
so please! stop blaming the industry and start taking your own responsibility!
Lastbat,
The key there is addictive. Very, very addictive. Sure it’s not IMPOSSIBLE to quit, but surely VERY difficult.
Some people have the will power to quit, and others do not.
The tobacco companies banked on that, and profitted from it. The preyed on the weak.
In my opinion, as a society, we should not allow that behavior by our corporate citizens. Those that exhibit that behavior should be punished, or others will follow suit.
so if it’s so addictive, then those who are on welfare are the same….so let’s sue the government to spend our money for those that can work but don’t intend to…they think that the gov’t has a money tree and is giving it freely!
they milking my tax money and making it harder for those that need to actually use the money for medicaid or social security.
responsible — um. check the dictionary. it does not have anything in their about addiction.
TYOB doesn’t want to commit to personal responsibility. TYOB wants an escape route.
It’s this simple – don’t buy cigarettes, don’t bum cigarettes, don’t smoke cigarettes and don’t hand around cigarette smoke. It’s the same thing alcoholics, cocaine addicts, meth addicts and heroine addicts do. They stop ingesting what they are addicted to. It truly is that simple. Stop ingesting. If it’s important enough to the addict they will quit. Until then they have every right to kill themselves in whatever way they desire – but not the right to sue the person supplying their poison of choice.
There are no “buts” (pun intended) about it. Yes nicotine is addictive and yes tobacco products are altered from pure tobacco to make them more addictive – but the information has been out there way too long for people to say it’s the tobacco companies’ fault they are sick. It’s a choice.
I read an article today on Yahoo that said stored in Ontario will no longer be allowed to display cigarettes; packs must be kept behind the counter or in a grayed-out display case so nobody can see the pack. This is on top of packs that by law must show graphic pictures of black lungs and rotted teeth in addition to a much harsher message than that required in the US. This is ridiculous. If people truly think tobacco is that bad make it illegal. I’m not for making it illegal, but I’m also not for picking on a perfectly legal industry either.
So as long as they try to dissuade the public they should be allowed to make their product more addictive? Talk about taking responsibility.
Hey, they’re telling people straight out not to use their product, that their product can kill them. If people still wish to use tobacco products after people told by the manufacturer that the product is bad, will kill them, they shouldn’t use it, they should do something else, never never never use tobacco, if after all that people still decide to use tobacco they could be lacing it with uranium for all I care because the consumer is doing something they know will kill them and the consumer needs to take responsibility for their own actions.
When you buy a new gun the instruction manual says to ensure that every gun is unloaded and clear (and provides instructions for how to do this safely), to never point a loaded weapon at anything you don’t intend to shoot and that guns have the potential to kill. If after all that somebody shoots themself in the head is the gun manufacturer guilty? This analogy is apt because the tobacco manufacturer actually gives more warnings than the gun manufacturer and the consumer still chooses to kill themself.
Lastbat:
Dude. You keep bringing up the point that warnings have been around for too long, and then I keep bringing up the point that in this lawsuit, the guy started smoking before the warnings. What is your problem dude(or dudette)?
And then you say something like, “well he should have sued after the warnings were put on the packages and should not have waited all these years”… How was he supposed to sue if he wasn’t yet sick? He had to wait.
Then you say something like, “well, he should have just quit if he didn’t want to die from cigarettes”. Dude, cigarettes are addictive and VERY difficult to quit. That’s the whole point.
Well, that combined with the fact that the companies knew they were addictive, didn’t tell people, expected that a large number of people wouldn’t have the will power to quit, and that they would make a crapload of profit off them.
That’s preying on the weakest among us. It’s shameful, and the strongest among us have a duty to stop it.
I’m sure you’ll decide to throw more demagoguery at me again, but I think I’m done with you and won’t be responding anymore.
I’m done wasting my time with your demogoguery.
TOYB/TYOB – Promise? OK, this man started smoking in 1957, warnings first came out on the packages, in US in 1963. But that wasn’t the first we had heard of the discussion. Much easier to quit after 4-5-6 years than 40, but he chose not too.
Based on my personal experience (I’m a 20 + year x-smoker with an alcoholic brother) it IS apparently much easier to quit smoking than to quit drinking.
Yes, the tobacco companies have done everything they could to make us continue to use their product – that’s called free enterprise. But people that weigh the evidence and decide they want to quit can, those who think they’d rather continue to smoke do, that’s called free choice.
I still get mail from Marlboro offering coupons or contests, but every piece of it also has information on where to find their smoking cessation help on their website. I don’t see that on a can of Bud Light or bottle of Absolut!
When I die, as we all will, I do not want my family to sue anyone for the choices I made during my lifetime – they can just continue to work and support themselves, or I’ll come back and haunt them!
Sheila, I like that last bit and I’m going to add it to my will “If anybody sues on my behalf for something stupid after I die I will come back and haunt you.” I love it.
I think the sad thing is that tobacco companies are still allowed to alter tobacco to make it more addictive which makes their attempts at educating the public about the dangers point them to assistance in quitting VERY hypocritical.
It seems that there could be regulation preventing this practice. The tobacco companies now market to 3rd world countries to get their new customers.
Of course the tobacco industry’s messages to consumers are hypocritical! The law mandates them to be. Please name one other industry that is mandated by law to spend a certain amount of money actively dissuading their customers. You won’t be able to because their is no other industry with that mandate.
We need to leave the tobacco industry alone and let people kill themselves in whatever way they see fit.
well, now let’s step back and look at another picture.
he’s been smoking for 40 yrs. we try to say that he died based on the smoking addiction. what if he had not been smoking and died in the same 40 yrs? are we planning to sue someone because he died of something else? he could have died from diabetes type 2 – which i have found out that this is hereditary – so do we so our parents and grandparents? we did not ask for that gene to be passed along. so we need to stop blaming the big companies when we make choices. again, we or i make a choice then i need to live with the consequences.
again, we not sure what would have happened if he had not smoked. not sure if he might have died earlier or later. let’s stop the blame, because we made a bad choice.
WHY ARE TOBACCO PRODUCTS UN-REGULATED, STILL LEGAL, AND CONSUMED AT THE BLESSING OF THE GOVERNMENT, AND THE DEATH OF IT’S USERS .!!! Tobacco Industry inter-office memos and letters, now exposed through court order. “What we want to do this morning is to take a summary look at the smoking and health question, and then make a proposal to you, for a B&W project to counter the anti-cigarette forces. “Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the “body of fact” that exists…”It is also the means of establishing a controversy!”. source: Brown and Williamson confidential strategy proposal, “Smoking and Health” 1969! Yes 1969.. and they knew about the hazards long before that.Time to get real people,.. about tobacco death,.. and it’s continued acceptance in our society.
WHY ARE FAST FOOD PRODUCTS UN-REGULATED, STILL LEGAL, AND CONSUMED AT THE BLESSING OF THE GOVERNMENT, AND THE DEATH OF IT’S USERS .!!! Fast food Industry inter-office memos and letters, now exposed through court order. “What we want to do this morning is to take a summary look at the fast-foods and health question, and then make a proposal to you, for a B&W project to counter the anti-fast food forces. “Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the “body of fact” that exists…”It is also the means of establishing a controversy!”. source: Burger and Fries confidential strategy proposal, “Fast-foods and Health” 1969! Yes 1969.. and they knew about the hazards long before that.Time to get real people,.. about fast-food deaths from heart attacks and ,.. and it’s continued acceptance in our society.