A Missouri jury took less than an hour to rule in favour of Philip Morris USA in a USD 1.5 billion (EUR 1.3 billion) class-action suit brought by former Marlboro Lights smokers, the St Louis Post-Dispatch said.

Jurors were asked to decide two issues: whether manufacture claims about ‘light’ cigarettes were motivated by evil, and whether the claims represented “reckless indifference” to the rights of others, the newspaper said. It was the second time the suit, first brought in 2000, was heard. The first jury deadlocked, the newspaper said.
Missouri smokers who used Marlboro lights between 14 Feb, 1995 and 31 Dec, 2003, were affected by the suit, the newspaper said. An estimated 700 million packs of Marlboro Lights were sold in the state during that period, the Post-Dispatch said.