In yet another lawsuit against the company Phillip Morris (Naugle v. Philip Morris USA), a Florida woman has been awarded over $300 million dollars. In the largest single recipient ruling to date, a jury meted out the fines to the tobacco company, including a record $244 million in punitive damages.
The smoker, 61-year-old Cindy Naugle, has been diagnosed with emphysema and is wheelchair bound. While she no longer smokes, she testified that she began using cigarettes at the age of 20 and did not quit for 25 years. The jury found Phillip Morris USA liable for 90% of her decision to begin smoking in the late 1960′s.
A Phillip Morris spokesperson has said the company will file an appeal. The company believes the jury was unfairly swayed by facts from an unrelated case that were used as evidence. The spokesperson also said that the award was “grossly excessive and a clear violation of constitutional and state law”.
Here are few comments from some of our readers:
Helen Decoteau says:
November 23, 2009 at 8:28 am
I’m tinking of filing a lawsuit my self i had lung canser from smoking for many years
mike says:
November 23, 2009 at 8:30 am
i have never smoked iam 52 years old but that kind of pay out to someone is crazy it just a get rich quick plan for people .And if god wanted you to smoke he would have given you lungs of steel like a smoke stack you all knew of dangers of smoking but refuse to quit no matter what the cost.
bobdog says:
November 23, 2009 at 9:57 am
Remember when questioning how a jury ruled-we didnt sit and listen to all of the evidence– the tobacco company says the judge made mistakes with regard to the evidence and that will be determined by an unemotional appellate panel.What interests me is the sentiment in this string of e-mails that places no personal responsibility on the tobacco company and whatever acts they may or may not have committed. I dont know what this jury heard. I think tobacco is addictive and causes a slew of health problems. I think tobacco companies have a long track record of protecting their profits through methods that are worth analyzing.
JACK OTT says:
November 23, 2009 at 8:33 am
IF YOU GONNA DANCE, YOU GOT TO PAY THE FIDDLER, IF YOU GONNA SMOKE YOU GOT TO PAY THE PRICE, DEATH.
Keith Hales says:
November 23, 2009 at 8:34 am
She thought she was going to drag smoke into her lungs for most of her life and it was not going to hurt her? Give her a crying towel and send her home. What kind of chad was this jury looking at. Pleaseeeee!
Tom Pepin says:
November 23, 2009 at 8:35 am
I have emphysema from smoking and I am still spending over $100 a month for the addiction, how do I get some help from the tobacco companys’ that hooked me?
Rose says:
November 23, 2009 at 9:12 am
Smoking should be banned from this society. Smoking is bad for the person, second hand and third hand smoking is harmful to others. What about the toxic fumes that are airborne. Once you become addicted, it is difficult to quit. My husband is a smoker, and can’t seem to quit. He cannot smoke in the house, but pollutes the air we all breathe when smoking outside. Smoking is dangerous and the government should ban the drug.
LoriC says:
November 23, 2009 at 8:36 am
I hope Phillip Morris wins the appeal and makes the woman pay all the court expenses. You chose to smoke, not the company. No feelings for anyone that smokes.
rocky raccoon from helter skelter england says:
November 23, 2009 at 8:45 am
Just another idiot who claims she “didn’t know any better” about the effects of smoking. Regardless of what she or the tobacco company knew when she started smoking, maybe she should have heeded the surgeon generals’ warnings PRINTED ON EVERY PACKAGE OF CIGARETTES SINCE THE 1960?S, or talked to her doctor’s (if she ever some one) about the risks of smoking. Unless she’s lived in a cave for the past 40 years or so, she should have known about the risks all along.
sandy says:
November 23, 2009 at 9:56 am
I totally agree…. how stupid is our courts system for rewarding this woman for her stupidity.
It like putting your hand in the fire after someone told you it was hot…your choice, your stupidity, YOUR FAULT or the conscequences your recieve. So now everybody that smokes and gets sick or dies, they and their families can sue and get rich…because if your going to reward one you have to reward all of them.
Do we reward alcholics when they kill people because the drove their cars after drinking, not heading warnings not to drive, and run into innocent people?? Guess our government and society better get their heads out of their butts and start thinking.
Lois says:
November 23, 2009 at 8:48 am
Another example of blaming someone else for our mess. I am a smoker, have smoked for 50 years. I am now trying to quit. I smoked 2 packs a day until a year ago. Prices are the main reason I’m quitting. This was my choice to start smoking. Anyone with a bit of common sense knows that putting cigarette smoke or any other foreign substance in your body is going to cause health problems. We have no one to blame but ourselves. Big corporations lie. This is a given in our society today. Anything for a dollar. We have to be able to decide what is best for ourselves. And I can’t understand juries giving out compensation in large quanties like the one against Phillip Morris. They should have to feed this money into a specal fund to provide medical care for all smokers. Why would a 61-year old woman need $300 million? Maybe Phillip Morris is supposed to provide for the next 10 generations of her family? I was raised to believe that we are responsible for ourselves-the choices we make, the bad habits we start, providing for our families and all other aspects of our life. I know there are exceptions to all of these rules, but we can’t blame someone else and expect compensation for every thing that goes wrong in our lives. Some people look for ways to sue and get a big pile of money. A fine example: Suing McDonalds because of hot cofee- suing because your kid eats too much and gains weight! Let’s get real people!
Mike Lynch says:
November 23, 2009 at 9:05 am
What is the worth of a human life? What is the worth of each hour and day snuffed out by addictive toxic smokes? These cases brought by the victims against Philip Morris and other tobacco companies should multiply in the courts until they sap the very life juice of profitability out of such hellish manufacturers of these concealed “drug delivery systems”. Millions of human beings have been sucked into that black hole of addiction and purposely trapped into years of outlay not only of money but also of life’s potential. Gnash your tobacco-stained teeth, Phil, your Day of Judgment has come!
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Von says:
November 23, 2009 at 9:08 am
This woman is over 60 years old. People have been warned about smoking for over 40 years. Unless she has a problem with reading there’s no way she didn’t know that smoking was BAD FOR HER. I’m sure all of the people in her family told her the risks. She chose to ignore them. She is more than 25% at fault. She is 100%. PM should not have to pay because she chose to ignore the warnings.
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Keith says:
November 23, 2009 at 9:16 am
I really hope that Phillip Morris wins their appeal. Unless she was living under a rock these pass 40 years, she fully well knew the consequences of smoking. You have got to be “blind, dumb, or plain stupid” not to have seen the warnings on the cigarette packs. The jury also are a bunch of flaming idiots. $300 million for her stupidity! Please!
Tobacco firm Philip Morris to pay out $300m in damages: Your Comments
Ok now this is ridiculous. I myself am a smoker but that is MY choice and not the fault of the tobacco companies.people that say they didn’t know smoking is addictive are full of you know what! that woman and the courts should be ashamed of themselves.
I really don’t know what to say. My family raised tobacco for many generations. I was in a tobacco field before I could really walk. Been smoking since the age of 8. I’m now 40 and hack and wheez all the time. I really don’t believe I knew better before I found myself addicted at 8 years old
So should the beer stores and all liquor stores be responsable for all the drinking and driving deaths across north america I think not its a free country we are aloud to drink and smoke. that puts the responsabilty on us.
Who will we sue when the legalization of marijuana grows in states across the nation? The Government?? The States?
I have watched my mother die from smoking,Now am watching my sister.
Iam a ex-smoker and i do feel it is a choice(bad one).
But if you ever smoked, you know how hard it is to quit. Cigarettes are really a drug.There should be rehabs for smoker who want to quit, not just programs.
TERRY, I have been saying that for a long time… there should be rehabs for smokers. I would love to start a rehab for smokers. I remember my family doctor telling me that nicotine is more addictive than heroin and harder to quit.
Some people cant kick the habit no matter what they do.The company should have to pay and pay and pay.The government won their case against big tobacco.The government is the one who insisted that the warnings be put on every pack. Yet they still allow these products to be sold.Oh, and by the way….everyone knows fast food kills also….has everyone stopped eating it…whos going to pay your medical bills.I have feeling for anyone who is addicted to any bad habit. The government collected and spent their money…and the government dosent even smoke. Why shouldnt someone who is suffering from the sale of any product not sue….by the way …..she will never live to collect
I am a smoker and I think some people are missing the point… of course smoker’s know now that smoking is harmful to our health. I think the real issue is the fact that the tobacco companies like Phillip Morris have tried to hide or deny this fact and more importantly the fact that smoking is so very addictive. For someone who started in the 60′s or 70′s I dont think there was much knowledge of the addictive nature of cigarettes.
How about the Hollywood movies that glamorized cigarette smoking for all these years…Are those people not culpable also???…Yes..we all get talked into doing things we shouldn’t do and it would be great if we could somehow get our life and money back from these poor decisions…but reality is that we made them and must live with the consequences.
It certainly looks like personal responsibility for many peoples ills are being blamed on someone else. Fact is that each cigarette pack is marked with a warning label. Fact is that no one forces you to put poisonous smoke into your lungs. No one should be blamed for your poor decisons. Next will we sue the liquor companys for causing Cerrosis of the liver?
This is nature’s way of thinning the Herd.
“The stupid shall perish first.” Nobody has to be TOLD tobacco is addictive. The obvious should have been the first time they ran out of smokes!
this women is pulling a scam because she’s upset that she can’t smoke anymore and needs someone else to pay for her medical bills. smoking is a choice. deal with it. smoking is more dangerous now then it was 40 years ago before the use of pesticides and mystery chemicals. i smoke and live in new york city and have no control over the fumes from the vehicles or the asphalt that melts when it reaches 80 degrees so for me smoking is less harmful then the air i’m forced to breathe.
Are we going to start suing those who make alcohol when our liver fails? Give me a break. People need to own up to their own actions.
There are two ways to look at this – the woman knew what she was doing and should have stopped, then the tobacco company lied about what ingredients are actually in their cigarettes, i.e., additives which are very addicting. No one should have to pay except us the taxpayers as we will pay for her medical care until she dies. I am not a smoker but come from a family of smokers and I have seen what it has done to them.
I smoked for 41 years because I wanted too! If you want to keep smoking you will. I stopped cold turkey and I am now 74 years old. Smoking is a habit as is anything with “I want to” at the start of your sentence. To award someone for “I want to” is stupid and you can’t fix STUDID.
Has everybody lost their minds??? I’m a 45 yr old smoker and I believe that the courts should never have awarded her any money!! Unless she suffers from mental retardation she absolutely made the choice to smoke. Nobody picked them up, lit them and forced her to inhale. Give me a break… let’s all start taking responsibility for our own behavior and stop trying to blame somebody else all the time!!!!!
was she secretly forced to smoke for all those years? rediculous
It is pathetic to think that a company has to pay someone an overly excessive amount of money for doing something of their own free will. If you are not smart enough to know that smoking is bad for you then tough luck, don’t come crying when you get sick and drain tax payer money with your health problems. There is no accountability these days and everyone just wants to blame other people for their problems. This woman should have been fined for her stupidity.
Well 300 mil will not stop the slow death that she signed up for when she began smoking, that is true. However, the tobacco industry has been adding different ingredients to their cigarettes to keep people addicted. They are to blame in some respects, they even put fiberglass into the cigarettes so the nicotine can get into the blood stream faster, how sick is that? I call it a 50/50, split both parties are responsible. When you are young and it is the “in thing” to do people get hooked, then the cycle begins and only the strong can quit. Tobacco companies thrive on the weak and profit from it. That is repulsive.
I hope everyone quits!
That is complete BS that they awarded this women 300 million for which I think is a self-inflicted illness.
People know the dangers but continue to smoke. That is their own fault if they get diseases from it. So does this mean we can sue this women and every other smoker out there if we get diseases from them exposing us to their second hand smoke? Or if we get heart disease from eating fast food all of the time can we sue Mcdonalds for it? I quit smoking 1 year 7 months ago using chantix. I did it to set an example for my children.
Yes by all means profit, profit, profit, no responsiblity. Its been proven the tobacco co’s did’nt fully disclose how addictive smoking was back when I started as a child (11 yrs old). They should be held accountable.
IT IS NOT AS EASY TO QUIT AS PEOPLE THINK IT IS. MY HUSBAND HAS QUIT SEVERAL TIMES, THE LAST TIME FOR 6AND A 1/2 YAERS BUT STILL CRAVED THE NICITINE. HE SMOKES 4 PACKS A DAY AND I WORRY SICK ABOUT HIM. I BUY EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING TO TRY AND HELP HIM QUIT AND HE REALLY WANTS TO BUT HAS NOT BEEN ABLE TO THUS THIS FAR. I PRAY EVERY NIGHT THAT HE DOES. WE HAVE BEEN MARRIED ALMOST 40 YEARS AND I WANT HIM AROUND FOR ANOTHER 40. WORRIED SICK
When are they going to start awarding us none-smokers subjected to second hand smoke with some of the big payouts these smokers are getting for their reckless use of their cigarettes? I think we suffered more than the smokers did; the difference being that we did not choose to be around it. The environment we grew up in forced it upon us. Everywhere I looked around me as a teenager and young adult, these smokers subjected me to their cigarette smoke. That is why I did not go out to bars or nightclubs as others did while in college. Can we turn around and sue the smokers who are suing Phillip Morris? It is a lot better these days as work environments and malls are for the most part smoke-free, (unless you work in a bar). However, whenever I come into work each day, I am still subjected to it as I approach the front door to enter the building. Some staff and customers have taken to smoking just outside the main doors of the building.
In my opinion, I think we should get a much bigger share of the pie than the smokers do as we were subjected to what they did. In my first job out of college over 25 years ago, I recall working in an office with other members of the treatment team. A couple of them smoked. We all worked with our patients in the same area. Sometimes when I was with a patient in the treatment area, my co-worker was also in that space working with her patient right along me puffing away at her cigarettes. When I brought up the fact that the cigarette smoke irritated my allergies and medically necessary contact lenses, I was told to bring a medical note in from my doctor to ‘prove’ I had a medical problem with it. My physician told me to cut out the caution notice on the side of a cigarette box and hand it to them. She did write a note; however, she did not provide as much medically personal information as requested. I ended up having to go to the main office of the facility for them to put it into action. I used to get along with my co-workers; however, after that, things went downhill. I ended up leaving shortly thereafter. Interestingly enough, the building Program coordinator for did not like being around cigarette smoke. Whenever anyone came into her office to meet with her of whenever we had morning or team meetings, she would obligate them to distinguish their cigarette before entering. She was however not inclined to make the same mandate for the treatment area we worked in as she felt time from work would be lost if staff had to leave their work to smoke. When I brought up the fact that the cigarette smoke irritated my allergies and medically necessary contact lenses, I was told to bring a medical note in from my doctor to ‘prove’ I had a medical problem with it. My physician told me to cut out the caution notice on the side of a cigarette box and hand it to them. She did write a note; however, she did not provide as much medically personal information as requested. I ended up having to go to the main office of the facility for them to put it into action. I used to get along with my co-workers; however, after that, things went downhill. I ended up leaving shortly thereafter. Interestingly enough, the building coordinator for our program did not like being around cigarette smoke either. Whenever anyone came into her office to meet with her of whenever we have morning or team meetings, she would obligate them to distinguish their cigarette before entering. She was however not inclined to make the same mandate for the treatment area we worked in as she felt time from work would be lost if staff had to leave their work are to smoke.
Bt the way, although I left the job and moved out of the area decades ago, I was made to understand some years later of the two smokers that were most ‘offended’ by having their ‘rights violated’, one has since died of throat cancer about five years ago; the other has emphysema and is on oxygen. She is only a few years older than I am, but looks old enough to be my mother. I wonder if any of them sued. I should find out and try to get them to ‘pay up’.
I quit this past March. Went to the website anesyrup.com and scrolled to the section on “mindset”. Once I made up my mind to quit, using the mindset method, it was easy. No cravings at all. Also there is a program by Allen Carr but it is not free. The “mindset” uses the same principle and is totally free.
300 mill. just for smokeing…so that means i can sue Metallica for the crick in my neck cuz their music made me want to headbang…or sue Sony for the wicked cramp in my butt cuz i sat in the same posistion for 3 hours playing their vid game…just wait till i get my hands on Hostess for their twinkies makeing me .01 ounces overweight…300 million…ARE YOU F*&^ING KIDDING ME?!?!?
I was born to a family of smokers, my Dad always tried to tell me not to do it, but when everyone else in the house smoked in the 40′s, 50′s, and 60′s, it was the elegant thing to do, sit proper with a cigarette in your hand. All the movies had smokers in them, then 40-50 years later we are told we are nasty, causing others to die, and because it’s not the proper thing to do anymore, everyone thinks we can just lay them down and quit. Its not that easy. I try not to smoke in resturants, I never smoke in anyone’s house unless they smoke too, I try to be thoughtful of others, but I am addicted, I admit. It’s like someone else taking Xanax. It calms me. Should I sue Philip Morris because I can’t quit????
So when are people responsible for their own decisions? Unless the tobacco companies hold a person down and physically force someone to smoke and get addicted, it is the individual’s responsibility for choosing to smoke. She bought into the advertising and thought it would be cool to smoke, and is now physically paying the price. I am a non-smoker myself and have no love for the tobacco industry, but people need to be held accountable for their own choises. These type of rulings are insane, opening the door for example: alcoholics, drug addicts, overweight people, etc., to sue anyone they blame for their condition without excepting any personal responsiblity for their own life choises.
OMG….it’s ridicolous!!!! hope philip morris win go go go…and down down down six feet below the ground whoever you are…..
I started smoking when I went into the Navy in 1953 (two months out of high school). Aboard ship when they pulled the anchor, and “Sea Stores” went into effect, cigs were 8 cents a pack. Everybody smoked and there were NO warnings.
Its the persons fault for smoking. Just like when u drink and drive they say its your fault and stupidity. Well if you smoke its your responsiblity too.
DUMB JURY!! she knew the risks of smoking we all do I’m a smoker is she that stupid that she didn’t read the warning on the box either I really hope they win the appeal…
i ate too many fattening cakes and pies for many years, and now have clogged arteries and heart disease. can i sue the baker who made the pies and cakes?
also, my friend was driving a car and had a crippling accident and no insurance. can i sue the company that made the car?
we both need good lawyers in a hurry. please help.
I cannot believe this article truly exists…this is absolutely ridiculous. If she does in fact win this money, I highly recommend anyone that was ever in contact with her while smoking turn around and sue her for any health problems they may have encountered as a result. She had the freedom of choice to purchase and smoke the cigarettes. No one held a gun to her head all of those years and said smoke or else. You can’t sit around and blame someone else for your addiction. That’s like an alcoholoic who killed someone while driving under the influence turning around and suing his favorite brand of booze for his addiction and choices or a bulemic turning around and suing her cookie company of choice for throwing up or a porn addict suing the industry for his failed marriage. I honestly cannot believe our country has come to this and that a randomly selected panel of people would all agree with this woman and award her for her bad choices. I do not smoke, nor have any desire, but I truly hope the cigarette industry wins on this one.
The tobacco companies cant be held responsible for you choosing to smoke a cigarette. People make the decisions for themselves and must live with the consequences that come with it, the fact that she won is ridiculous.
Well, will be interesting to see the outcome because where will it all end! I agree with most that stated that its her own fault, she knew the risk. But what will be next, booze causes accidents,, sue the companies ! sure! Oh, and the new big craze in the states are all the people in trouble with bank and credit card companies pushing them further in to debt with uncalled for high iterest rates,,,, sue THEM,,they have put your health in trouble, stressed out,,dam, how dare them,, sue them for what you own + damages for your health !!!! lol, please ! where will it end.