Supreme Court lets $50 million tobacco verdict stand

By Holly Fleming

Published on March 22, 2006

The award, to be paid to the family of Richard Boeken, is the biggest court-mandated payment to date for an individual tobacco-related lawsuit. Boeken was a two-pack-a-day smoker; he died of lung cancer at the age of 57. He began smoking when he was 13 and tried hypnosis, classes, and nicotine gum in order to quit. He then switched to Marlboro Lights, believing they were healthier. He smoked until the end of his life, after the lung cancer had spread to his brain.

Philip Morris USA dominates nearly half of the American cigarette market. The company had asked that the award be declared "unconstitutionally excessive."
But the Supreme Court justices moved unanimously to let stand both the settlement and the 2001 ruling of a California state court jury that found the Richmond, Va. tobacco behemoth guilty of fraud, negligence, misrepresentation, and selling a defective product.

Comment on this article →