Nope, some chowder-monkey jury awarded a smoker 28 billion US of A dollars.
What the flipping fuck? I don’t care if Phillip-Morris was selling poisoned candy-apples to children, 28 BILLION dollars??? Did the jury think that they were going to get a cut of that action?
Let it be known that I now officially have no respect for L.A. jurists.
From the link, Mrs Bullock was awarded $850,000 in compensatory damages.
The $28 billion award against Philip Morris represents punitive damages. Such awards are designed to punish. In order to punish a company like Philip Morris one needs to deprive them of a very large amount of money indeed. At a rough guess, the $28 billion covers about 5 years profits.
The award will be appealed. If past form means anything, the $28 billion may be reduce to something more palatable to Philip Morris, say $1 billion.
About 9 weeks profits.
Of course, there’s probably no legal way to do this, but instead of awarding someone who’s about to die 28 billion, why not make Phillip Morris provide that amount to cancer research & cancer hospitals? I guess the states were probably supposed to do this with settlement money, but from what I’ve read and heard, it didn’t really happen that way…
Things happening like this is why I question the idea of letting juries decide fianicinal rewards
Cant they use some sort of system like they use for sentencing criminal for monetary rewards ?
Or set up some some sort of fining system so the money goes ot the “victims”?
But rewards like this has to stop somewhere …
Holy cow, An- read the post right above yours. They didn’t award her $28 billion.
Zette -
I did read the post above mine - the plaintiff gets 850k in compensatory damages, the 28 billion is punitive - it didn’t specify where that 28 bil was going; I assumed the plaintiff…maybe I’m wrong about that, I’m no legal expert, but put your gun back in your holster and take a deep breath…
Sorry, I forgot to say that whether the damages go to the plaintiff or the court/govt., the point I was trying to make is that damages should, IMO, be tied more directly to righting the wrong and not somebody getting paid, whoever that is…
This is fucking idiotic. If she had quit smoking in the 70’s when it started really coming out that smking was bad for you, then maybe I could see a claim being awarded, but not even close to $28billion dollars If she chose to smoke thru the 80’s and 90’s then fuck her. I grew up in the 80’s and I knew smoking was bad for your health. If the dumb bitch chose to enjoy the smooth taste of filterless camels or whatever she smoked, over enjoying her life, tough shit.
Now thanks to grandmas smoking, the next three generations, at least, of Bullocks won’t have to work a day in their miserable fucking lives.
If smoking is killing people then make it illegal. If it is not, then stop letting people sue these companies. How the fuck you can have it both ways is beyond me.
The next three generations? HA!
Stick 1 billion dollars into an account earning 5% interest compounded monthly.
That’s $5,900 per hour. Every hour. If you spend $5,000 an hour you still haven’t yet touched that 1 billion because you haven’t even broken through the interest.
$28 billion will last a long long time.
Drinking alcohol is killing people. Driving a motor vehicle kills people. Care to make those things illegal?
Note: A jurist is a judge. A person who sits on a jury is a juror.
When I first read that headline last night I said, “this must have happened in California.”
Yep.
I’m sure that amount will come down a bit on appeal. 
Ahh. Even though I was intending to insult the jurors, I may as well take this opportunity to show some disrespect to the ‘jurist’ who presided over this travesty of a case.
Sigh…I dunno. Words fail me. What the hell could this judge/jury have been thinking?
Some people are already trying to do that. Here in MI there is something called Proposal 4 which seeks to distribute the money to charities, healthcare organizations and to spend some on anti-smoking campaigns.
You can read something about it here
Rick
You’ve got to be shitting me. This is absolutely fucking insane.
Man, that’s even more than A-Rod makes. :rolleyes:
IANAL, but I think the 28B, or whatever it’s eventually reduced to, does go to the plaintiff. So due to anti-tobacco rage and some slick legal work, we may have seen the founding of a family who will not need to work for a living for many generations.