FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  

Contact:
Edward Sweda or Mark Gottlieb

(617) 373-2026

e-mail to media @ tplp.org

May 21, 2009                                                                                                                                                    Press Release

CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT RULING CONTINUES TREND FAVORING RIGHTS OF CONSUMERS TO SUE TOBACCO COMPANIES

While tobacco executives continue to claim that tobacco litigation is “manageable,”
the companies are far from being out of the woods.

With Monday’s California Supreme Court decision to revive a class action lawsuit by consumers harmed by the tobacco companies’ “decades-long campaign of deceptive advertising and misleading statements about the addictive nature of nicotine and the relationship between tobacco use and disease,” a series of major litigation developments over the last six months has contradicted Big Tobacco’s public relations spin.  That spin, most recently pronounced at Altria Group, Inc.’s (the parent company of Philip Morris) annual shareholders meeting in Richmond, Virginia on Tuesday by Chairman of the Board Michael E. Szymanczyk, is that tobacco lawsuits across the country are “manageable,” and, thus, nothing for investors to worry about.

            The California Supreme Court opinion in In Re Tobacco II Cases is at http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S147345.DOC

            Edward L. Sweda, Jr., Senior Attorney for the Tobacco Products Liability Project (TPLP), addressed the Altria Group meeting, listing some of the other recent rulings that have gone against Philip Morris.  These include:

            In December, the Supreme Court of the United States, in Good v. Altria Group, Inc., rejected Philip Morris’ argument that state lawsuits claiming that the company violated consumer protection laws by perpetrating its light cigarette scam are pre-empted by federal law.  Thus, that Maine case, as well as dozens of similar lawsuits, can proceed to trial.   See http://www.tobacco.neu.edu/litigation/cases/pressreleases/scotus_good_decision.htm and the decision itself at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08pdf/07-562.pdf

            On March 31, the Supreme Court of the United States rejected Philip Morris’ attempt to reverse the Oregon Supreme Court’s approval of a $79.5 million punitive damages award in a product liability case that resulted in a 97-to-1 ratio of punitive to compensatory damages  For more information on Williams v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., see http://www.tobacco.neu.edu/litigation/cases/Backgrounders/williams_20098_scotus_final.htm    Thus, very high punitive damages awards triggered by the tobacco companies’ reprehensible misconduct will be available to plaintiffs in tobacco product liability cases.

            Furthermore, in the first of thousands of post-Engle individual cases pending in Florida, a jury in February returned an $8 million verdict – including $5 million in punitive damages – for the family of a smoker who died of lung cancer at age 55.  Plaintiffs have won verdicts in three of the first five post-Engle individual cases to go to trial.

            “As I pointed out at the Altria Group shareholders meeting in Richmond this week, major adverse rulings, including two from the highest court in the land, have undermined the claim, asserted in the company’s 2008 Annual Report, that ‘the litigation environment has substantially improved in recent years,’” Sweda said.

            “With product liability claims ongoing in the thousands and consumer-based class actions having been revived, tobacco litigation in 2009 is a vibrant strategy to improve the public health,” Sweda concluded.

-- 30 --

            The Tobacco Products Liability Project (TPLP) is a project of the Public Health Advocacy Institute, which is based at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston.