A tough decision to take in

Maybe the jury thought the local plaintiff wanted to buy the

Bullocks Department Store.

In burning the Philip Morris tobacco company with a $28-billion

punitive damages award to be paid to a lung-cancer victim from

Newport Beach who smoked most of her life (48 years), a Los Angeles

jury has given advocates of tort reform a helping hand.

Its first mistake was to suppose that Bullock was not responsible

for her own actions, despite decades of anti-smoking health warnings

that only the comatose on a desert island could have missed. Being of

the identical age and generation as the plaintiff -- my parents and

relatives warned me in 1953 not to smoke because it caused lung

cancer.

If self-accountability truly counts for nothing, then what are the

objections to the much-ridiculed suit brought by obese plaintiffs

against fast-food restaurants? The philosophy of such lawsuits is

clear: Let’s just forget people have the capacity to be responsible

for themselves and undermine one of the crucial premises of a free,

democratic political system.

This error was then compounded by a damages award clearly meant to

be destructive to Philip Morris. If the jurors were serious about

this award being given, they must have been seeking to outlaw the

sale of tobacco in this city, state and country, for that would be

the ultimate consequence of such decisions. But that’s not the role

of juries. They are not meant to legislate national policy. They are

meant to exercise common sense judgment about facts and the meaning

of the law in particular cases.

Figure for yourself. Assuming today’s low interest rates, even a

5% return on $28 billion is $1 billion, $400 million a year without

dipping into the principal -- more in one year than entire families,

clans and family trees make in centuries.

The amount of the award will hopefully be reduced as appeals move

ahead; the Supreme Court’s guideline is that punitive damages should

not exceed compensatory damages by more than four times, which would

bring the award to a few million dollars.

But meanwhile, it should be painfully clearer to thinking

observers that lawyers, judges and juries are not to be trusted under

current tort laws and that some limits need to be enacted.

The Constitution does not provide for multi-billion dollar awards

for persons, who given freedom of choice, elect to harm themselves.

And by the way that money comes from the pockets of consumers like

you who buy products or own stock in Phillip Morris. We all pay a

lawsuit tax estimated at $2,000 per person in the state of

California. Inhale on that one!

* MICHAEL ARNOLD GLUECK is a Newport Beach resident.