Via the WashingtonPost.com:

Court Overturns $10 Billion Verdict Against Philip Morris

By David A. Vise
Washington Post Staff Writer
December 16, 2005

Philip Morris USA won a legal victory yesterday when the Illinois Supreme Court reversed a $10.1 billion lower-court verdict that held the company, and its parent, Altria Group Inc., liable for allegedly misleading consumers about the risk of developing cancer from smoking its "light" cigarettes.

By a vote of 4 to 2, the court threw out the ruling against the nation's biggest cigarette manufacturer. The court's majority said in a written opinion that Philip Morris did not violate the law because its marketing of low-tar Marlboro and Cambridge cigarettes using the term "light" had the blessing of the Federal Trade Commission...

No doubt the Illinois Supreme Court will be getting holiday cards from Phillip Morris this season. Extensive additional details on the case and the verdict at the Post.

--MDT