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Woburn, MA— Jurors this week handed down a $40.57 million verdict against the nation’s two largest cigarette companies, after finding them responsible for a Massachusetts smoker’s fatal lung cancer. Amaral v. Philip Morris, et al., 2181CV000062.
The Massachusetts Superior Court jury, in Middlesex County, deliberated across five days before finding cigarettes made by Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds were defectively designed and caused the 2019 lung cancer death of Jose Amaral, then 54.
The verdict includes $25 million in punitive damages imposed against Philip Morris and another $11.5 million in punitives imposed against Reynolds, in addition to more than $4 million in compensatories.
Jurors cleared the two cigarette makers on other claims, and completely cleared two retailers that sold cigarettes to Amaral.
Amaral began smoking as a young teenager and continued smoking a pack or more of cigarettes a day for more than 30 years. Amaral’s family contends Philip Morris and Reynolds made and marketed cigarettes they knew were were addictive and caused cancer. And the month-long trial turned largely on whether cigarettes the two companies made were unreasonably dangerous.
In his closing argument, Shook Hardy & Bacon’s Bruce Tepikian, representing Philip Morris, told jurors evidence showed all cigarettes are inherently dangerous and that there was no reasonable, safer alternative to the product. Tepikian told jurors Philip Morris had experimented with alternative designs such as heat-not-burn cigarettes and ultra-low nicotine options, but these products failed in the marketplace.
“A cigarette that is not acceptable to consumers is not a reasonable alternative design,” Tepikian said.
Jones Day’s Kevin Boyce, representing Reynolds, agreed, and walked jurors through evidence he said showed the company worked for years to reduce dangers inherent in its cigarettes, including making filtered and very-low nicotine cigarettes, which Reynolds scientists believed were safer.
“The plaintiffs need to prove that [cigarettes are] defective based on conscious design choices of the company,” Boyce said. “And here, the conscious design choices that Reynolds made actually make cigarettes safer and reduce the risk for smokers.”
But Gordon & Partners’ Gary Paige, representing Amaral’s family, argued that evidence showed filtered and “light” cigarettes like the ones Amaral smoked actually increased rates of adenocarcinoma, the same type of lung cancer Amaral developed.
And Dolan Dobrinsky Rosenblum Bluestein’s Randy Rosenblum, also representing Amaral’s family, argued the safer alternatives placed on the market in the late 20th century failed because the companies were unwilling to publicly acknowledge smoking was dangerous during that time.
“These [alternative designs that were sold] were safer, but they weren’t telling people any of those things,” Rosenblum said. “And that’s why these things failed in the marketplace, not because people didn’t want them.”
Email Arlin Crisco at acrisco@cvn.com.
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