Washington  - The US Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out cigarette maker Philip Morris USA's appeal in a 79.5-million-dollar lawsuit brought a decade ago by a smoker's widow.

The court, in a one-sentence opinion, declined to rule on the legal issues in the case, effectively upholding the award in 1999 by an Oregon jury to Mayola Williams, who was widowed when her husband died of lung cancer.

The award has since ballooned to 145 million dollars with interest.

The tobacco company, a unit of the Altria Group Inc, had argued that the case should be thrown out because the jury had not been given proper instructions that they must only award damages for the man's death and not consider damages done to other smokers who were not part of the lawsuit. But a state court in Oregon had rejected that claim.

The case has come up before the Supreme Court twice before and been sent back to the lower courts. In refusing to again rule on the case the Supreme Court may have ended more than a decade of legal wrangling.

In the earlier cases, the Supreme Court found that the jury could not impose damages for harm caused to others and suggested the award was too large, but did not rule directly on the amount itself.

"While we had hoped for a different outcome, the Supreme Court has decided not to review a narrow procedural ruling by the state court," Murray Garnick, counsel for the tobacco company, said in a statement. "Today's decision does not impact the court's earlier decisions on punitive damages."

Under Oregon law the award is to be split between Williams and the state. The company said it would contest the state portion of the award.

Jesse D Williams, a janitor, smoked close to three packs a day for nearly 50 years. He died in 1997 about six months after he was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. (dpa)