Tagged: Philip Morris USA

Updated 3:40 p.m. with company comment.

The Illinois Supreme Court has rejected cigarette-maker Philip Morris USA's quest to toss out a lower court's revival of a lawsuit that produced a $10.1 billion verdict against the company.

Wednesday's decision affirms a Mount Vernon-based appellate court's February ruling that sends the case back to southwestern Illinois' Madison County, where a judge sided with plaintiffs in a suit over Philip Morris' marketing of "light" cigarettes. The state's high court later threw out that verdict.

Philip Morris USA and other major tobacco companies won a favorable verdict Friday in a lawsuit filed by 37 Missouri hospitals seeking more than $455 million for treating sick smokers.

Philip Morris USA was one of six tobacco companies involved in the lawsuit.

The hospitals had claimed cigarette companies delivered an "unreasonably dangerous" product and were seeking reimbursement back to 1993 for treating patients who had no insurance and did not pay their bills.