MichaelSchmichael

Philip Morris Pays Up: Something's Not Right

You, like the author, obviously don't get it, and your confused and angry response only serves to confirm my point that this article was (successfully) intended to confuse and foment anger. PM USA was not found "culpable" because of its financial wherewithal. Rather, it was found "culpable," i.e., liable, because its product injured the plaintiff. Only the punitive portion of the damage award took into account its financial wherewithal (like all punitive damage awards). And, like most large punitive damages awards, it will get thrown-out or reduced on appeal on constitutional grounds. MO and PM are two of my largest single holdings, so my comments shouldn't be seen as coming from an anti-tobacco or business stance. They should, however, be seen as coming from an anti-idiot stance. Entendes?


On Nov 28 08:05 PM User 23832 wrote:

> Obviously, the law rightly "discriminates" against wrongdoers and
> in favor of law abiding citizens; however, the author's point (which
> you failed to grasp) was that in determining whether a person is
> a wrongdoer and, therefore, should be discriminated against by the
> law (i.e., fined, punished or subject to other liability), the law
> should be impartial rather than presupposing culpability on grounds
> such as financial wherewithal etc. This is a basic principle of
> the US justice system.
>
> Capisce?

Philip Morris Pays Up: Something's Not Right

There are a couple things wrong with this article. First is the failure to distinguish between compensatory and punitive damages, which as other people above pointed out have different goals. Then there is the statement that justice is supposed to be "impartial and treat[] everyone equally" -- which, on its face, is nonsense, as justice DEMANDS that some people, like murderers, be treated very differently from other people. Even in less extreme cases, any reasonable and partially-conceived notion of justice and the rule of law does not require equal and impartial treatment of all people at all times, e.g., there is nothing morally or constitutionally problematic about allowing people with medical degrees and licenses to operate on other people while prohibiting those without appropriate credentials from doing so. In fact, if you believe in the rule of law, you must believe in "unequal" treatment because laws ALWAYS discriminate against some class of persons (driver's license laws discriminate against those without licenses, anti-polygamy laws discriminate against adults wishing to have multiple spouses, antitrust laws discriminate against businesses wishing to exercise monopolistic pricing, etc.). This "article" seems to me (successfully) tailored toward fomenting a certain anti-intellectual reaction, and not toward presenting some novel or interesting proposition relevant to law, business or investing.

Altria Has Been Great, Time to Exit

"The decision is a horrible one in that it now opens all businesses to suits that would have ordinarily been funneled to Federal Court to State Court, where we all know nothing good can happen."

This makes little sense. The Altria decision was a narrow decision addressing whether a federal law specific to the tobacco industry preempted state deceptive act statutes. First, the decision has no impact on non-tobacco businesses. Second, it does little to change the overall legal environment for tobacco companies as they are already in litigation in all 50 states, facing common law claims that will almost always be in state as opposed to federal courts (assuming compliance with CAFA). Rather than the chicken little assessment offered here, I see it as more of a "heads we win, tails it takes us longer to win" decision, where tails came up.