Two days ago, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued one of its most significant product liability decisions in years, unanimously affirming a $56 million judgment against Philip Morris USA in the wrongful death case of a Cape Ann woman who smoked the company’s cigarettes for over four decades and died of lung cancer at 60.
The decision in Fontaine v. Philip Morris USA Inc. is worth understanding not just because of its size, but because of what the court said about how Massachusetts law treats corporations that knowingly cause harm to consumers over many years.
What Happened to Barbara Fontaine
Barbara Fontaine began smoking Marlboro cigarettes as a teenager. She switched to Parliaments later, in part because Philip Morris marketed them with a recessed filter that implied they were a safer alternative. She smoked more than a pack a day for over 40 years, trying repeatedly to quit using nicotine patches, gum, prescription medication, electronic cigarettes, and other methods. She finally stopped in 2015 only after her doctor refused to perform a medical procedure unless she quit. Two years later, she was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. She died in 2017, leaving behind her husband Armand and their two children.
Her family sued Philip Morris for wrongful death, alleging the company breached the implied warranty of merchantability by failing to offer a reasonably safer alternative cigarette, negligently designed and marketed its products, deliberately targeted its advertising to minors, committed fraud, and participated in a decades-long conspiracy with other tobacco companies to mislead the public about the dangers and addictive nature of smoking.
What the Jury Found, and What the Courts Did With It
After a 21-day trial in Middlesex Superior Court in 2022, the jury found Philip Morris liable on all major claims. Philip Morris did not dispute that its cigarettes caused Barbara’s lung cancer and death. The jury awarded $8.014 million in compensatory damages, including $2.5 million to Barbara’s estate for her conscious pain and suffering, $514,000 in medical bills, $1 million to her husband for loss of consortium, $1.5 million to her son, and $2.5 million to her daughter.
The jury also awarded $1 billion in punitive damages, the largest punitive damages award ever returned by a jury in the nearly 400-year history of Massachusetts. Under state law, punitive damages in wrongful death cases are capped at seven times the compensatory damages. The trial judge reduced the punitive award to approximately $56 million and denied Philip Morris’s request for a new trial. The company appealed, arguing the jury had been inflamed by passion and prejudice and that a higher evidentiary standard should apply to punitive damages awards going forward.
The SJC rejected every argument Philip Morris raised. In a 49-page opinion authored by Justice Gabrielle Wolohojian, the court found that the evidence of the company’s conduct provided a “robust basis” for the jury’s verdict without any resort to passion or prejudice. The trial judge’s reduction to $56 million was within constitutionally permissible bounds, and the court declined to adopt the stricter procedural rules Philip Morris sought.
What the SJC Said About Philip Morris’s Conduct
The language in the opinion is unusually direct. Justice Wolohojian wrote that the record included “virtually uncontested evidence” of Philip Morris’s “reprehensible conduct over decades,” specifically that the company purposely designed its product to be addictive, targeted its advertising to children, and misled the public about the health dangers of cigarettes, all while knowing that cigarettes caused widespread preventable death.
Philip Morris did not deny that a conspiracy existed among tobacco companies to mislead the public, that the conspiracy’s purpose was to deceive consumers about the dangers of smoking, or that the cigarettes Barbara smoked were addictive, cancer-causing products that led directly to her death. That concession, combined with the internal documents presented at trial, gave the jury ample grounds to conclude the conduct was exactly as serious as the $1 billion award reflected, even after the legal cap brought it down to $56 million.
What This Ruling Means for Massachusetts Families
Fontaine reinforces several important principles of Massachusetts wrongful death law that apply well beyond tobacco cases.
Punitive damages are available in wrongful death cases. Under M.G.L. c. 229, § 2, Massachusetts allows punitive damages in wrongful death cases when the defendant’s conduct was malicious, willful, wanton, or reckless. This is not available in every state and it is a meaningful tool for holding large corporations accountable. The cap at seven times compensatory damages still applies, but as this case shows, compensatory damages themselves can be substantial when the court properly values a person’s conscious suffering and the family’s losses.
Loss of consortium is recoverable for children, not just spouses. The jury awarded separate loss of consortium damages to Barbara’s husband, son, and daughter. Massachusetts wrongful death law recognizes that the loss of a parent is a real and compensable harm for adult children, not just surviving spouses.
Conscious pain and suffering is a separate element of recovery. The $2.5 million awarded to Barbara’s estate for her conscious pain and suffering during her illness is what Massachusetts law calls a survival action, filed alongside the wrongful death claim under M.G.L. c. 229, § 6. If a person survived for any period after the negligent act and experienced awareness of their suffering, that element of damages belongs to the estate and flows to the beneficiaries through the probate process.
Marketing practices targeting minors create lasting liability. One of the jury’s findings was that Philip Morris negligently marketed cigarettes to Barbara when she was a minor. The SJC affirmed that this conduct, even though it occurred decades before her death, was properly part of the liability picture. For any product that was marketed irresponsibly to young people and caused long-term harm, this principle matters.
The Practical Takeaway for Families
Cases like Fontaine take years to litigate and require substantial resources and expert testimony. They are not simple. But they are winnable, and the Massachusetts courts have consistently signaled that they will support juries that take seriously the full human cost of a corporation’s knowing, long-term misconduct.
If a member of your family has died or suffered a serious illness due to a product you believe was defective, negligently designed, or marketed in a way that concealed known dangers, the time to explore your legal options is now. The three-year statute of limitations runs from the date of death, and in product liability cases involving long latency periods, building the right factual and expert record takes time.
Contact Weigand Law at 508-775-3118 or email [email protected] for a free consultation.
Attorney Blair E. Weigand — Helping those with legal questions for 35 years and counting.