Bad legal news comes in threes for cigarette makers: federal judge Gladys Kessler has ruled that the U.S. Department of Justice will be allowed to ask for disgorgement of $280 billion in past tobacco industry profits in the federal racketeering case against the industry (Nancy Zuckerbrod, “Judge: Government Can Seek Tobacco Profits”, AP/Washington Post, May 24)(more on suit). Health-program recoupment suits similar to those successfully pressed by state governments in the U.S. have been almost uniformly rejected in foreign courts, but an exception may be shaping up in Canada, where an appeals court in the province of British Columbia has just given its go-ahead to such a suit (Rod Mickleburgh, “Court upholds B.C.’s right to launch ‘big tobacco’ suit”, The Globe and Mail, May 21). And: “In the first verdict of its kind in the nation, a New Orleans jury decided Friday that four big tobacco companies should pay $591 million for a comprehensive, 10-year smoking-cessation program for a half-million or so of their Louisiana customers.” (Susan Finch, “Jury tells tobacco firms to pay up”, New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 22). More: On a somewhat brighter note, the California Assembly has narrowly defeated the scary bill sponsored by Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh and backed by the American Lung Association that would have prohibited parents from smoking in cars in which their children were riding (see Apr. 30) (Steve Lawrence, “Assembly rejects bill to bar smoking in cars carrying young kids”, AP/SignOnSanDiego, May 28); for more news on secondhand smoke controversies, see updates appended to post of Oct. 16, 2003 (scroll to end).

Filed under: Canada, Louisiana, tobacco