PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- A jury ordered Philip Morris to pay $150 million in punitive damages Friday in a lawsuit that contended low-tar cigarettes are as dangerous as regular ones.
The lawsuit was filed by the estate of Michele Schwarz of Salem, who died of lung cancer at age 53 in 1999 after smoking low-tar Merit cigarettes.
The jury found that Philip Morris had falsely represented that low-tar cigarettes are healthier than regular ones. The trial, which began in early February, was thought to be the first to test that issue.
Philip Morris said it would appeal.
Schwarz had switched from a regular filtered cigarette because she believed the low-tar version would be better for her health, said the attorney for her estate, Lawrence Wobbrock.
Wobbrock contended in court that Philip Morris marketed the cigarettes as having fewer health risks.
But James L. Dumas, one of the company's attorneys, said Philip Morris did not market Merits as healthier than regular filtered cigarettes. He said the company advertises them as milder, or feeling less harsh.
Wobbrock said smokers were getting the same amount of tar by taking more puffs on their cigarettes and smoking them closer to the butt.
But Dumas said it was not the company's fault that smokers figured out how to get around the low-tar design.
Dumas also said that Schwarz, who worked for many years in the medical office of her physician husband, was well aware of the dangers of cigarette smoke.
Martin Feldman, a tobacco analyst with Salomon Smith Barney in New York, said the verdict appeared to be the first time a jury issued a ruling on low-tar cigarettes.
The trial came three years after another Multnomah County jury ordered Philip Morris to pay $80.5 million to the family of Jesse Williams, a retired janitor who died of lung cancer in 1997.
At the time, it was the largest individual smoker verdict in the country. The punitive damages were later reduced to $32 million and the case is pending before the Oregon Court of Appeals.
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