Court Says Philip Morris Must Pay $50 Million

Altria Group Inc.’s Philip Morris USA must pay $50 million to the family of a smoker who died of lung cancer, the California Supreme Court ruled, rejecting the company’s request to reduce the punitive damage award.

The court declined requests by both the smoker’s family and the company to review the award, which had been reduced from $3 billion to $100 million and then to $50 million. The court didn’t give a reason for its decision.

A jury awarded Richard Boeken, a lung cancer patient, $3 billion in 2001. At the time it was the fifth-largest award in a U.S. court. The verdict was later reduced to $100 million by the judge.

An appeals court said even that was excessive and cut the punitive damage award to about nine times the size of a separate $5.5-million compensatory award, the most allowed under a U.S. Supreme Court decision that said punitive awards should almost never exceed nine times compensatory damages.

“Although we thought the court of appeals opinion was well written, when it came to putting money on the table the appeals court failed,” said Michael Piuze, an attorney for Boeken’s family.

Dawn Schneider, a spokeswoman at Philip Morris, did not return a message left on her voice mail after business hours.

Boeken, who began smoking two packs a day in 1957 when he was 13, died in 2002.