'Tis a marvelous day when the Supreme Court, in an alliance of strange bedfellows, takes a baby step toward reason when it comes to the lawsuit lottery.

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...Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in his majority opinion that the award to Mayola Williams could not stand because a jury may punish a defendant only for the harm done to the person who is suing, not to others whose cases were not before it.

“To permit punishment for injuring a nonparty victim would add a near standardless dimension to the punitive damages question,” Breyer said.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter, joined with Breyer.

Dissenting were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, John Paul Stevens and Clarence Thomas.hands down a decision negating an obscene jackpot punitive damage award. 

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Sure, it's easy to demonize a cigarette company, but this lady who sued them, claiming that over the course of the 40 years her late husband smoked they just had no clue that smoking might be harmful, is either a whack job, totally stupid, or just a money-grubber.  Possibly all three.  My mother, born in 1923, called them coffin nails back when she was a girl, for Pete's sake.

Even though the decision was based more on standing than on how high punitive damages should go, I'll take it as a victory.

As a semi-aside, my husband Dr. McFudge dissents from the idea that smoking is just too hard for people to quit, especially when they've smoked for decades.  Why?  Because his patients do it all the time when they go into the hospital, and since he works in a (physical) rehabilitation hospital, his patients have extended stays.  He has little patience, no pun intended, with the people who claim they "can't" quit, because he's seen it over and overs: they quit when they have to.