Overlawyered » tobacco settlement

How Massachusetts spends its tobacco money

Walter Olson — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 19:54:16 +0000

You know, the money that was said to be so vital to fund “tobacco control” programs. What percentage of the state of Massachusetts’s haul (more than $250 million a year from legal settlement proceeds, aside from outright taxes) do you think actually gets spent on such things? Guess, then click through to my new Cato post.

Tags: Massachusetts, tobacco settlement

How Massachusetts spends its tobacco money is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

NYT on California food labeling suits

Walter Olson — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 04:07:47 +0000

The New York Times reports on some experienced plaintiffs’ lawyers who are hoping to rip big sums out of food companies alleging mislabeling; one is particularly outraged at a yogurt maker’s use of the “evaporated cane juice” euphemism for sugar. “The lawyers are looking to base damages on products’ sales…. [They] are being selective about where these suits are filed. Most have been filed in California, where consumer protection laws tend to favor plaintiffs.” The Times article, which reads somewhat like a press release for the lawyers involved, flatteringly describes them as “the lawyers who took on Big Tobacco,” though in fact a much larger group of lawyers played prominent roles in the Great Tobacco Robbery of 1998, and no evidence is presented that most of that larger group are taking any interest in the food-labeling campaign. What’s more, the many efforts by the plaintiff’s bar to identify a suitable Next Tobacco in the intervening years have been full of false starts and fizzles, including such mostly-abortive causes as mass litigation over alcohol, slavery reparations, HMOs, and dotcom failures.

The Times does draw the link to Proposition 37, the lawyer-sponsored measure I wrote about last week, which could open up a basis for rich new suits based on failure to correctly affix labeling tracking the sometimes-fine distinctions between genetically modified foodstuffs and all others. The text of Proposition 37 proposes to base minimum damages on the total sales volume of a product sold out of compliance, not on any measure of actual harm to consumers (& Thom Forbes, Marketing Daily; Ted Frank, Point of Law). Earlier on Don Barrett here and on Walter Umphrey and Provost Umphrey here and here.

Tags: California, eat drink and be merry, tobacco settlement

NYT on California food labeling suits is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

State tobacco bonds begin to wobble

Walter Olson — Tue, 08 May 2012 13:59:18 +0000

And Michael Greve is cheering for the wheels to come off [Law and Liberty] I devoted a chapter of The Rule of Lawyers to the states’ Great Tobacco Robbery, which you can also read about here. More: Coyote (“We changed our mind. Please go smoke.”)

Tags: tobacco settlement

State tobacco bonds begin to wobble is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Tobacco Companies Not Liable to Missouri Hospitals”

Walter Olson — Mon, 02 May 2011 13:41:32 +0000

A jury rejects a strained health-outlay recoupment claim. [Mass Tort Lit]

Tags: hospitals, tobacco, tobacco settlement

“Tobacco Companies Not Liable to Missouri Hospitals” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

March 23 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 14:35:27 +0000

New Yorker suing boss for $2M because working in New Jersey caused him “anguish” [Biz Insider]
British lawyer’s libel threats impede UK publication of Paul Offit vaccine book [Respectful Insolence]
Lawsuit settlement leads to Florida push to curb tobacco discounter [WSJ; background, Jeremy Bulow]
Allegation: attorneys made personal use of cy pres fund in Armenian genocide settlement [PoL]
“Telecommuting employees raise special wage and hour issues” [Hyman]
UK bias cops wonder whether to ban gay-preferred along with gay-not-preferred guesthouses [Ed West, U.K. Telegraph]
Copyright mills: “Local law firm wants to defend people sued by local law firm” [TBD] Related: [Citizen Media Law, Coleman]
“Top 10 Reasons to Not Open a Bar or Restaurant in NYC” [NY Enterprise Report]

Tags: cy pres, fair housing, libel slander and defamation, New Jersey, NYC, restaurants, RightHaven, tobacco settlement, vaccines, wage and hour suits

March 23 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Tobacco tax hike was a backroom deal”

Walter Olson — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 14:34:30 +0000

The Supreme Court should strike down the multistate compact by which state attorneys general carried out the Great Tobacco Heist of a decade ago, argues Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute [Washington Times and CEI; earlier here, here]. I’ve discussed the MSA at chapter length in my book The Rule of Lawyers as well as in shorter form here and elsewhere.

P.S. AEI’s Michael Greve analyzes the legal background at Balkinization.

Tags: tobacco settlement

“Tobacco tax hike was a backroom deal” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

January 5 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 12:04:34 +0000

Notables including Alan Morrison, Richard Epstein, Kathleen Sullivan sign amicus brief urging court review of multistate tobacco settlement [Daniel Fisher/Forbes, Christine Hall/CEI, Todd Zywicki]
“Congress rediscovers the Constitution” [Roger Pilon, WSJ]
Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. profiled [Roger Parloff, Fortune]
When outside investors stake divorce litigants: yes, there are legal ethics angles [Christine Hurt]
Mexico, long noted for strict gun control laws, has only one legal gun store [WaPo]
Judge throws out “parasitic” lawsuit piggybacking on Wisconsin drug-pricing settlement [Madison.com]
Erin Brockovich sequel: Talking back to the Environmental Working Group on dangers of chromium-6 in drinking water [Oliver, Logomasini/CEI]
“Little white lies” to protect the bar’s image [five years ago on Overlawyered]

Tags: constitutional law, divorce, Erin Brockovich, guns, John Roberts, litigation finance, Mexico, pharmaceuticals, tobacco settlement

January 5 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Supreme Court asked to review multistate tobacco deal

Walter Olson — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 12:57:18 +0000

Alas, court challenges have generally failed in the past despite the many seeming constitutional and legal infirmities of 1998′s Great Tobacco Robbery — its taxation-escaping-normal-constraints-on-taxation, its bald imposition of retroactive liability, its state-sponsored cartelization of the cigarette trade, its odoriferous self-dealing and counsel-contract coziness, and so forth. Doubly unfortunately, the courts have adopted an exceedingly narrow interpretation of the Compacts Clause, which on its face you might think would bar states from entering deals with each other of this sort without Congressional approval. Christine Hall of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which filed the new certiorari petition, wonders what the Founders would have thought: “It’s hard to believe they would’ve written the Compact Clause for no reason.” [Open Market]

Tags: tobacco settlement

Supreme Court asked to review multistate tobacco deal is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Censoring movie depictions of smoking

Walter Olson — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:47:20 +0000

“There has been a growing effort over the past decade from groups such as Smoke Free Movies and SceneSmoking.org, which hosts the annual Hackademy Awards, to pressure Hollywood into cutting back the amount of smoking in films. Now those groups are getting government support for their cause from US Reps. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass) and Joseph Pitts (R-PA) and from a group of health organizations, including Legacy, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization.” [Washington Post] Legacy, incidentally, is a group created as a result of the $246-billion state-Medicaid tobacco settlement whose purposes include pushing for further “tobacco control” — one of many examples in this area in which government-driven funding is employed to further advocacy on one side of controversial issues.

Tags: movies film and videos, tobacco, tobacco settlement

Censoring movie depictions of smoking is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

August 13 roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:06:17 +0000

Lawyer sued for sexual harassment countersues, wins $1.55 million in damages [The Recorder]
Court rejects another challenge to tobacco multistate settlement agreement [Sullum, Reason]
European human rights claim: “Fury as German doctor seeks injunction against victim’s sons” [Daily Mail]
New CPSC rulemakings on CPSIA testing frequency and component testing could sink many small businesses [Woldenberg]
Connecticut AG Blumenthal picks fight with life insurers [Hartford Courant, with comments]
Undies moral: “Excess litigiousness is part of the whole shebang of dangerizing everything.” [Skenazy, Free-Range Kids]
“False-Marking Suits Head for a Showdown” [Robbins, Texas Lawyer]
“I think my years in the [adult film] industry will make me a great lawyer.” [Above the Law]

Tags: CPSIA, harassment law, international human rights, patent marking, Richard Blumenthal, tobacco settlement

August 13 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system