Boeken v. Philip Morris Inc.

26 Cal. Rptr. 3d 638, 127 Cal. App. 4th 1640, 2005 Daily Journal DAR 3895, 2005 Cal. App. LEXIS 517
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedApril 1, 2005
DocketB152959
StatusPublished
Cited by185 cases

This text of 26 Cal. Rptr. 3d 638 (Boeken v. Philip Morris Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Boeken v. Philip Morris Inc., 26 Cal. Rptr. 3d 638, 127 Cal. App. 4th 1640, 2005 Daily Journal DAR 3895, 2005 Cal. App. LEXIS 517 (Cal. Ct. App. 2005).

Opinion

Opinion

HASTINGS, J.

BACKGROUND

Richard Boeken filed this action on March 16, 2000, alleging various theories including negligence, strict product liability and fraud resulting in personal injuries caused by his cigarette addiction. 1 The complaint alleges that Boeken began smoking in 1957, when he was a minor, that he smoked Marlboro and Marlboro Lights, both manufactured by Philip Morris USA, Inc., and that he was ultimately diagnosed with lung cancer in 1999.

The cause was tried to a jury over approximately nine weeks, beginning in March 2001. The jury found that Philip Morris products consumed by *1650 Boeken were defective either in design or by failure to warn prior to 1969, resulting in injuries to Boeken. The jury also found liability to Boeken based upon fraud by intentional misrepresentation, fraudulent concealment, false promise, and negligent misrepresentation, concluding that Boeken had justifiably relied upon fraudulent utterances and concealment by Philip Morris. Compensatory damages in the amount of $5,539,127 were awarded by the jury. It also assessed punitive damages in the sum of $3 billion dollars.

A Philip Morris motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict was denied. Its motion for new trial was conditionally granted solely on the issue of punitive damages unless Boeken accepted a reduction in punitive damages to the sum of $100 million, in which case the motion was denied. Boeken consented to the reduction and an amended judgment was entered on September 5, 2001. Philip Morris and Boeken each filed timely notices of appeal.

We issued our first opinion on September 21, 2004, affirming the judgment but further reducing punitive damages to the amount of $50 million. Philip Morris and Boeken each filed petitions for rehearing, which we granted. We heard further argument on February 15, 2005. After reconsidering the issues raised by the parties, we again affirm the judgment and order reduction of punitive damages to $50 million, if Boeken accepts the remittitur. If he does not, we affirm the order of the trial court granting a new trial to Philip Morris on the issue of punitive damages.

EVIDENCE REGARDING SMOKING, ITS EFFECTS AND THE FALSE CONTROVERSY 2

Physicians had the ability in the mid-nineteenth century to diagnose lung cancer. It was a rare disease until some years after the first commercial prerolled cigarettes were introduced in the United States in 1913. In the 1930’s, there was a sharp increase in the number of cases diagnosed, and by the end of World War II, its incidence had increased 20-fold.

Boeken’s epidemiological expert, Dr. Richard Doll, joined Professor Bradford Hill at the London School of Hygiene in the late 1940’s, to conduct the first studies in the United Kingdom to determine the cause of lung cancer, and why its incidence had increased so dramatically. Statistics *1651 established a causal connection between smoking and cancer, and Doll and Hill published their results in 1950 in the British Medical Journal. 3

A Dutch scientist had published a paper in 1948, having reached the same results, and in 1950, a smaller American study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association by American scientists Drs. Graham and Wynder, also reaching the same conclusion. There had been earlier studies in Germany, but they were not given much weight because the scientific methods used were not optimal.

The popular media and the United Kingdom Department of Health were not convinced by the Hill and Doll study, and so the two undertook a years-long study of 40,000 smoking and nonsmoking English doctors who did not have lung cancer. They thought it would take 5 years to complete the study. But in 1954, after two years and 35 deaths due to lung cancer, they felt the results were clear and published their findings immediately in the British Medical Journal. This study was more widely accepted than the previous studies and changed attitudes considerably.

The American Cancer Society then undertook a two-year study with 190,000 subjects, in order disprove Doll’s conclusions. In 1954, its scientists reported their belief that the conclusions reached in the British study had been correct. Even after publication of Doll’s second study and the American Cancer Society study, some leading scientists still questioned the link between lung cancer and smoking, and opinion among scientists was evenly divided until about 1956. At that time, opinion had firmed up quite definitely among scientists that smoking caused lung cancer.

Neil Benowitz, M.D., Boeken’s addiction expert, testified that nicotine is addictive, and the most effective way addiction is achieved is delivery by cigarette smoke. 4 Withdrawal symptoms include irritability, anxiety, insomnia, trouble concentrating, nervousness, and dysphoria (mild depression), and can last for months after quitting. Some symptoms last forever. Smokers use denial and rationalization to continue doing what is obviously or apparently *1652 harming them and may acknowledge a general risk, but given a choice of conflicting opinions, they will choose the opinion that supports continued tobacco use.

In 1954, the tobacco industry embarked upon a decades-long strategy to create public doubt about the “health charge” through “vigorous” but not actual denial, such as by claiming that experimental proof was still lacking, and that the statistics were not to be trusted, because they were poorly obtained or grossly exaggerated. 5

First, several tobacco companies, including Philip Morris, formed the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC), a public relations organization, to counter the “anti-cigarette crusade” by providing “balancing information” regarding “unproven facts.” 6 To announce its formation, it published “A Frank Statement” in newspapers across the country. The “Frank Statement” claimed: “Distinguished authorities point out . . . that there is no proof that cigarette smoking is one of the causes [of lung cancer] [and] statistics purporting to link cigarette smoking with the disease could apply with equal force to any one of many other aspects of modem life. Indeed, the validity of the statistics themselves is questioned by numerous scientists.” 7

According to Dr. Doll, the Frank Statement was a “bald untruth.” While some scientists had questioned the link, most knew at the time of the Frank Statement that smoking caused lung cancer.

Tobacco studies continued throughout the 1950’s in many countries, including Japan, Denmark, and France. In 1957, the United States Heart and Lung Institute, the National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Health, and American Cancer Society appointed a joint committee to advise on the state of the science, and concluded that smoking was a cause of lung cancer.

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Bluebook (online)
26 Cal. Rptr. 3d 638, 127 Cal. App. 4th 1640, 2005 Daily Journal DAR 3895, 2005 Cal. App. LEXIS 517, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/boeken-v-philip-morris-inc-calctapp-2005.