Quoted from http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aTwIZdxCwp_U
Pfizer Jury Said to Set Prempro Punitive Damages at $8 Million
By Jef Feeley and Sophia Pearson
Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Jurors said in 2007 that a Pfizer Inc. unit should pay more than $8 million in punitive damages to a woman who blamed the company’s menopause drugs for her breast cancer, according to people familiar with the sealed figure.
A Philadelphia jury in January 2007 awarded Mary Daniel compensatory damages of $1.5 million in her lawsuit against Pfizer’s Wyeth subsidiary over its Prempro menopause treatment. The panel recommended she get more than $8 million in punitive damages if an appeals court found she was entitled to such an award because of bad conduct by the company, people with direct knowledge of the figure said.
The $8 million figure was sealed pending an appeal. A judge in Philadelphia refused last month to make it public. A Pennsylvania appellate court heard arguments in Wyeth’s challenge to the verdict on Dec. 1. Wyeth wants the jury’s $1.5 million compensatory award thrown out. Daniel’s lawyers are seeking to have punitive damages added to it.
“U.S. courts are presumed to be open to the public under our democratic system, and sealed verdicts cast doubt on the fairness of the third branch of government,” Michael Allen, a Stetson University law professor who has written articles on punitive damages, said in an interview.
With this case, juries have said women deserved more than $173 million in punitive damages in lawsuits linking hormone- replacement drugs and breast cancer since the cases began going to trial in 2006. More than 6 million women have taken the medicines to treat menopause symptoms including hot flashes, night sweats and mood swings.