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American Morning

Lawyers Expected to Appeal $3 Billion Verdict Against Philip Morris

Aired June 07, 2001 - 11:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The legal eagles at tobacco giant Philip Morris are very busy getting ready to appeal a $3 billion verdict handed down against that company. The Verdict returned by a Los Angeles jury favored Richard Boeken, who began smoking when he was 13. He now has lung and brain cancer.

Our legal analyst Roger Cossack joins us now from Washington, once again. Folks, you might do double take here because Roger was here just moments ago, talking about the Timothy McVeigh case, but since he is a legal expert, we have decided to keep him on board and have him do double duty for us and talk about this.

ROGER COSSACK, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: For $3 billion, I'm back.

HARRIS: You're not getting a penny of that.

The question is whether or not Mr. Boeken is going to get a penny of this money that's been handed down here.

COSSACK: If I were Mr. Boeken, I wouldn't be spending any of that $3 billion so fast, not because I think he's not going to get a sizable verdict, but I think, at $3 billion, Philip Morris may go back into the judge and saying, Judge, this is an excessive amount. I understand why jurors may want to give punitive damage -- those are those kinds of damages that punish companies for wrongdoing, but $3 billion is really an excessive amount, and I wouldn't be surprised if the verdict gets cut down. But you have a long way to go when you're starting with $3 billion.

HARRIS: If I'm not mistaken, this is, from what I've been reading, the largest single verdict ever handed down to a single plaintiff. What made the difference in case?

COSSACK: Who knows? Maybe it's a Californian jury, and they were more health conscious than other juries. I don't mean to sound facetious. I really don't know. You know, recently, the tobacco companies have been discovered to have, in fact, known all along that nicotine was addictive, and in some cases, they even juiced up that nicotine in cigarettes and made misleading statements. And you get that stuff in front of a jury, and eventually, you're going to find a group of people who are going to get overly angry.

This was a man who, apparently, had some other problems. He was a heroin addict and an alcoholic. He was able to quit both of those. But nicotine is a very strong and addictive substance, and perhaps this jury felt that the tobacco company had to be punished, and punished greatly.

HARRIS: Thanks much, Roger.

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