Last week, a Los Angeles jury awarded an ailing 64-year-old woman $28 billion in punitive damages in a case against tobacco-giant Philip Morris Cos. The amount is the highest that has ever been awarded to a person for punitive damages in U.S. history, and jurors said the amount is justified.

Jurors had been told that only one in 28,000 lung cancer victims get their day in court, which prompted them to make Philip Morris pay a $1 billion punishment for each of the 28,000.

Philip Morris’ lawyers said even though the company can absorb the $28 billion award, they said they expect that number to be reduced. One tobacco analyst called the award almost “comical.”

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Warren L. Ettinger instructed the jury to consider three things when considering the amount of the punitive damage award. Those were: the amount of punitive damages that would have a deterrent effect on the company; the degree of reprehensibility of the company’s conduct; and the amount that damages bear a reasonable relationship to the injury suffered.

The jury went overboard when considering the third factor. The jury’s hearts are in the right place, but why give that amount of money to the plaintiff, Betty Bullock, when she’s already been awarded $850,000 in compensatory damages?

In a Los Angeles Times article, Bullock said she started smoking when she was 17 and was diagnosed in 2001 with lung cancer, which has since spread to her liver. And despite all of the warnings that were issued by the Surgeon General since the 1980s, pleas from her daughter and a second husband dying of complications of emphysema and bleeding ulcers, she still smoked.

During the trial, Bullock said she was aware of medical studies showing that smoking caused lung cancer and other deadly diseases, but she continued to smoke because of the company’s reassurances.

“But then I’d see things Philip Morris would say, like that’s just statistics, there is not medical proof. Our No. 1 concern is our customers, and we protect their health and there wasn’t any health risks,” she said.

The hard truth is Bullock was misled by Philip Morris and might not live to see the money she has been awarded. Of course, Philip Morris was looking after the bottom line when making assurance to its consumers.

Bullock’s situation is unfortunate, but let’s not make her the poster person on this particular issue.

The woman definitely deserved money for punitive damages from Philip Morris, but not an amount of money that could be and should be divided up in 28,000 ways.

Editorial Board:Cavan Reagan, Amber Billings, Rachel Faber Machacha, Charlie Weaver, Zach Calef, Ayrel Clark.