Some litigation lasts long enough for both sides to claim major victories along the way. That’s certainly been true in an Illinois class action against Philip Morris USA Inc., which has spent more than a decade trying to evade a $10.1 billion verdict for deceptively advertising “light” cigarettes.
That megaverdict, first awarded to the plaintiffs in 2003, was already thrown out once in 2005 before getting reinstated in 2014. This week, the company again gained the upper hand when Winston & Strawn’s James Thompson and Arnold & Porter’s Lisa Blatt convinced the Illinois Supreme Court to vacate the massive judgment for a second time.
