![]() ![]() Finally, evidence showed that tobacco companies actively marketed their products to children. Furthermore, evidence also demonstrated that tobacco companies destroyed any research results showing an adverse health impact from tobacco use and further went to great lengths to convince the public that smoking was not harmful or addictive. The trend’s reversal was due in part to increased public awareness of the health risks posed by tobacco use, but, more notably, was thanks to increased access to tobacco companies’ internal operations and communications.Īs stated by the trial judge in Bullock’s case, this included evidence that demonstrated tobacco company executives’ knowledge since the 1950s that cigarette smoke caused lung cancer and that nicotine was a highly addictive drug. Second, the timing of this award is important: the late 1990s and early 2000s saw the bucking of a previous trend of virtually universal success by tobacco companies in fending off lawsuits - a trend that started in the 1950s. ![]() This award is historically significant for several reasonsįirst, as already stated, the $28 billion in damages was the largest ever awarded to an individual plaintiff (in 2000, $145 billion in punitive damages was awarded by a Florida jury, but the case was a class-action with over 500,000 plaintiffs). The individual plaintiff - Betty Bullock - was a 64-year-old woman with inoperable lung cancer who sued the tobacco giant for negligence, strict product liability, and fraud.Įight days earlier, on September 26th, the same jury awarded $850,000 in compensatory damages to Bullock, making the punitive damages to compensatory damages ratio a whopping 33,000 to 1. The marine deputies are doing a great job, but they need your support.Ī little involvement and concern can make this a more peaceful world.On October 4, 2002, a Los Angeles jury awarded $28 billion in punitive damages against tobacco maker Philip Morris - the largest tobacco damages award that had ever been issued in an individual case. Get all the information you can: boat numbers, size and color of the boat, day and time of day, even the name of the owner if you know it. The sheriff’s office recommends that you call 9-1-1. They want to make more noise and go a little faster. In conversations with the Sheriff’s Department, I have learned that some boat owners install a device that allows them to raise and lower their exhaust pipe by flicking a switch, which is pretty ironic since it is clearly illegal. Two years ago WATCH (Water and Air Team Charlevoix) gave the Charlevoix County Sheriff’s Department a decibel meter to aid in this effort. ![]() (Above the water is much more noisy.) Marine deputies are aware of these standards and are involved with enforcement and education of boaters about them. The act also makes it illegal to have an exhaust pipe above the water at any time. There is a law called the Marine Safety Act (Act 451 of 1994) that is enforced by the Sheriff’s Department that gives a decibel limit for boats. ![]() You may think there is nothing you can do about the noise, but you would be wrong. If you are near or on a lake and you are rocked by loud, deeply hoarse motor noise that sounds like a motorcycle on steroids that you can hear for miles, it is probably a cigarette boat. I am writing specifically about cigarette boats, the ones that are very fast and very noisy. Most of it comes from motors of one kind or another and in the summer it may come from a lake. Noise pollution is becoming an increasing problem in Northern Michigan, especially for those of us who enjoy peace and quiet. Noise pollution from boats requires action ![]()
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