A $10 billion award goes up in smoke ...

In a landmark decision the Illinois Supreme Court threw out a $10.1 billion class-action lawsuit against Phillip Morris USA on Thursday ruling that the company did not defraud customers in its marketing for 'light' cigarettes.

The details of the court decision can be found in this story that appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch -- which by the way did a better job than a half dozen other stories I read explaining the complicated lawsuit and latest court decision.

Here's that story.

Another story tells that the judge in the 2003 award has no comment.

A third story details how Madison County's coffers are literally running over just from the interest they've earned on the $12 billion bond Phillip Morris was required to put up.

I've read with interest some ramblings on this blog about whether or not there are areas of the country that are more favorable to lawsuits. According to some the term 'judicial hell-hole' is nothing more than a myth and there is no such thing as venue shopping.

To that logic I say 'hogwash.'

And you have to look no further than last year's Illinois Supreme Court election where Lloyd Karmeier and Gordon Maag slung mud and traded lies to the tune of $10 million to prove that point.

Interestingly, on this particular 4-2 vote Karmeier voted to overturn the decision. Considering that Maag was himself a defense attorney ... I think it's a given how he would have voted.

The question was asked many, many times last year why, in an area as impoverished as Southern Illinois is, would two candidates combine to spend $10 million? The answer to that question was delivered in spades with this decision.

I recently wrote a column about Madison County attorney John Simmons donating $10 million to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Simmons is a member of the SIUC board of trustees and is a partner in the law firm of Simmons-Cooper.

For those who want to believe that venue shopping does not exist and that Madison County was not rightfully and correctly called a judicial hell-hole, you might find some of the stats in the column interesting.

Here's the link to the column.