A National Legal-Action Antismoking Organization
Entirely Supported by Tax-Deductible Contributions
| Home | Search | About ASH | Why Join | Comment | Email page |
|
Action on Smoking and Health
A National Legal-Action Antismoking Organization Entirely Supported by Tax-Deductible Contributions
|
LA Jury Decides Tobacco Industry Must Fund $590 Million Smoking Cessation Plan [05/21-6]
Excerpts from: Tobacco Industry Must Fund $590 Mln End-Smoking Plan
Bloomberg.com [05/21/04]
Philip Morris USA, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. and other U.S. cigarette makers must pay more than $590 million to fund quit-smoking programs in Louisiana, a jury in New Orleans decided.
The jury, which decided in July to require the companies to help Louisiana smokers quit smoking, ruled today that they must pay the money into a court-administered fund that will finance 12 end-smoking programs for periods of five to 10 years.
The companies will pay $562.7 million to fund the programs, including $130 million for marketing and education to encourage smokers to quit and $102 million to fund reimbursement of smokers' medication. The jury also added 5 percent to the payment for the programs to cover administrative costs. The total payment for the companies is $590.8 million.
The verdict is the first of its kind in a tobacco suit and comes after the Florida Supreme Court decided earlier this month to review a lower court ruling that threw out a $145 billion punitive damage verdict against the industry that was reached in 2000.
Lawyers for the Louisiana smokers had asked the jury of eight women and four men to finance a statewide quit-smoking program for 25 years at a cost of more than $1 billion.
The companies called that plan a ``billion-dollar boondoggle'' that most smokers wouldn't use. They suggested that the jury reject the proof put forward by the smokers' attorneys or at least to limit the program to $7 million to $20 million and three years.
In addition to Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds, the two largest U.S. cigarette makers, the defendants in the Louisiana case include Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., a unit of British American Tobacco Plc, and Lorillard Tobacco Co., a unit of Loews Corp.
The suit, filed in 1996, did not go to trial until last year, after numerous appeals to the Louisiana Supreme court on jury selection and other issues.
The Louisiana smokers claimed the cigarette makers hid the health risks of smoking and committed fraud. The companies claimed the case shouldn't have been tried as a class action because individual life stories were too different for claims to be grouped together. They said the program was based on speculation about how many people would use it and how much it would cost.
In its July verdict, the jury rejected a request by smokers to make the cigarette makers pay $12 billion to monitor Louisiana smokers for smoking-related diseases.
In the only other tobacco trial involving proposed medical monitoring of an injured class, a jury in Wheeling, West Virginia, decided in November 2001 that the companies sued didn't have to pay for check-ups of 250,000 smokers.
| Home Web Page | Search This Site | Learn About ASH | Why Join ASH | Comment on This | Email This Page |