Dead Smoker's Family Gets $71M

A Boston jury ruled that Lorillard Inc.—the company behind Newport cigarettes—must award a Boston family $71 million in compensatory damages for the death of Marie Evans a longtime smoker. Evans’ son will receive $21 million, while Evans' estate will get another $50 million. Before Evans, who was black, died in 2002 from lung cancer, she gave a video deposition claiming that attractive white ladies gave her samples of cigarettes when she was 9 years old and she began smoking them by the time she was 13. At the time, Evans lived in a low-income black Boston neighborhood and she, along with her sister, claimed that white men and women would distribute the samples in their neighborhood to young children. Lawyers for Lorillard stated that they never targeted black neighborhoods before, but in a surprise judgment, the jury sided with the Evans family stating that the tobacco company was reckless in passing out the samples.