Smoker's Widow, Philip Morris Continue Court Fight Over $79.5M Award

In this 2006 file photo, Mayola Williams, widow of Jesse Williams, who died of lung cancer, leaves...

In this 2006 file photo, Mayola Williams, widow of Jesse Williams, who died of lung cancer, leaves the Supreme Court in Washington. On his death bed, Jesse Williams, who had smoked for more than 40 years, blamed tobacco companies. He told his wife, "Those darn cigarette people finally did it. They were lying all the time." A jury awarded Mayola over $800,000 in compensatory damages and a whopping $79.5 million in punitive damages. Williams has not seen a dime of either award.

(Dennis Cook/AP Photo)

A cigarette maker and a smoker's widow squared off for the third time at the Supreme Court on Wednesday over a $79.5 million punitive damages award, but the real battle was between the justices and their counterparts on Oregon's high court.

Twice before, the Supreme Court has struck down the judgment against Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris USA and ordered the Oregon court to take another look at the case. Each time, the Oregon high court has upheld the award to Mayola Williams, the widow of a longtime smoker of Philip Morris' Marlboro brand.

In its latest appeal, Philip Morris contended the Oregon judges were essentially thumbing their noses at the Supreme Court. "We're here today because the Oregon court failed to follow this court's decision," Philip Morris' lawyer, Stephen Shapiro, told the justices.

Justice Stephen Breyer, who sided with Philip Morris in its last round, was more skeptical of the cigarette maker's arguments Wednesday.

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At first, Breyer said, "I thought this was a runaround. I'm not sure I think that now."

At the same time, however, the justices worried that state courts could ignore Supreme Court rulings on constitutional issues.

"How do we guard against making constitutional decisions which are simply going to be nullified by some clever device?" Justice David Souter asked.

Robert Peck, Williams' lawyer, tried to allay the concern. "There was no sandbagging here," Peck said. "The Oregon Supreme Court did not act in bad faith."

The case has bounced around appellate courts since 1999, when Williams convinced a jury that Philip Morris should be held accountable for misleading people into thinking cigarettes were not dangerous or addictive.

Williams' husband Jesse was a janitor in Portland who started smoking during a 1950s Army hitch and died in 1997, six months after he was diagnosed with lung cancer.

She was awarded $800,000 in actual damages. The punitive damages — intended to punish a defendant for its behavior and deter a repeat — are about 97 times greater. A state court previously cut the compensatory award to $521,000.