Stephen Tillery of Korein Tillery won a remarkable appellate reversal this week, persuading an appeals court to reinstate a $10.1 billion verdict he won against Philip Morris USA Inc. more than a decade ago. The verdict could get tossed once again, but for the time being Tillery is the envy of all the plaintiffs lawyers who have sued Big Tobacco and lost.
In an April 29 ruling, Illinois’ Fifth District Appellate Court reinstated a 2003 bench verdict that Philip Morris (now a unit of Altria Group Inc.) deceptively marketed “light” and “low tar” cigarettes to a class of 1.1 million Illinois consumers. The Illinois Supreme Court had tossed the bench verdict in 2005, ruling that Philip Morris couldn’t be held liable for using the light and low tar descriptors because the Federal Trade Commission permitted those terms.
