This may be a long year for Altria/Phillip Morris. Today the comnpany was hit for $ 8 million by a Florida jury hearing one of the thousands of claims left from the Florida class action litigation that was decertified. In these cases, Altria is more or less limited to contesting causation and arguing contributort fault because it is bound by some parts of the prior decisions in the prior class action litigation. However, according to Bloomberg, plaintiff’s counsel had asked the jury for over $ 100 million, so perhaps Altria “won” in a way.
Last year, Altria restructured to spin Phillip Morris off to shareholders, as decsribed on its website.