Philip Morris to Pay Punitive Damages Despite Massachusetts Deal

Philip Morris USA Inc.'s 1998 settlement with Massachusetts, which released liability for punitive damages, doesn’t bar a jury’s $10 million punitive award to a smoker’s widow there, the commonwealth’s top court ruled Wednesday.

The wrong for which Pamela Laramie sought redress in her lawsuit differs from the increased smoking-related public medical expenditures that the Massachusetts attorney general wanted Philip Morris to cover, Justice Dalila Wendlandt wrote.

Appellate courts in New York and Georgia, by contrast, have held that the nationwide master settlement agreement in which Massachusetts participated bars punitive damages claims by residents of those states against tobacco product makers, ...