From: bill@smokescreen.org
Date: Thu, 09/25/03
The following article helps explain why cigarette companies want the US
Senate to enact S. 274 (the Class Action Bill), which would allow
cigarette company defendants to move class action lawsuits from state
courts to federal court (where they'd almost certainly die). The
subsequent article indicates that the US Senate will consider this class
action legislation (combined with other bills) next week.
Please contact your two US Senators at 202-224-3121 and urge them to
oppose the class action legislation unless tobacco products are exempted
from the bill. It is especially important to contact undecided Senators
including: Lieberman (CT), Dodd (CT), Byrd (WV), Bayh (IN), Landrieu
(LA), Reed (RI), Nelson (FL).
- - -
Smokers granted class-action status
By Stephen Hudak
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH)
September 25, 2003
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Medina- Smokers who say they were duped into buying low-tar cigarettes,
believing they were safer, can sue tobacco giant Philip Morris, a judge
ruled yesterday. Medina County Common Pleas Judge James Kimbler granted
class-action status to a pair of lawsuits filed by Akron lawyer A.
Russell Smith, who named Morris brands Virginia Slims lights and
Marlboro Lights.
The judge said he expects both sides to appeal. Lawyers for the tobacco
company had urged the judge to throw out the lawsuits, which mirror
those in a dozen other states, including Oregon, where the family of a
53-year-old woman won a $150 million jury award last year. Smith wanted
the class to include all smokers in Ohio, but the judge's ruling
restricts it to smokers in Medina County and bordering counties Ashland,
Cuyahoga, Lorain, Summit and Wayne.
Unlike earlier class-action claims against cigarette-makers, the
lawsuits here do not claim personal injury but consumer fraud. Smith
said Philip Morris falsely represented light cigarettes as healthier.
Tobacco companies say they use the term "light" to describe cigarettes
with lower amounts of tar and nicotine - not safer smokes. The tobacco
industry generally defines a light cigarette as one with less than 15
milligrams of tar, the carcinogen that delivers nicotine to the smoker.
In legal arguments to the judge, Smith said tobacco companies began
making low-tar cigarettes in the 1960s after the nation's surgeon
general announced that high tar and nicotine levels increase health
risks for smokers. Low-tar cigarettes account for the largest share of
cigarette sales in the United States.
- - -
GOP to push legislation on class action, asbestos suits inside jobs bill
By Jesse J. Holland
24 September 2003
(c) 2003. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Two of the Republican Party's most desired legal
changes, meant to reduce class-action lawsuits and asbestos litigation,
will be presented to the Senate next week in one combined bill.
The provisions, which were approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee
but found strong opponents in Democrats, will be packaged together with
other measures as part of a GOP jobs package, said Sen. Rick Santorum of
Pennsylvania , a member of the Republican leadership.
"I don't think there's any question that both of those measures will
create jobs, especially with asbestos litigation, with companies being
put into bankruptcy and people losing jobs," Santorum said. "They are
having to put so much money into litigation when they could be expanding
their business and creating new jobs .
"Class action is the same thing, with a huge amount of money being spent
on litigation that would otherwise be spent on economic expansion," he
added. "They both liberate money from very expensive and not
particularly useful litigation expenses."
Both pieces of legislation have been priorities for the business
community this year. Senate Republicans have been trying to find enough
support to keep them from being filibustered by the Democrats.
"I've been talking to CEOs from every sector of the economy, and they've
made it very clear that class action and asbestos reform should be
addressed this year," Tom Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, said last week.
Under the class action legislation, class-action lawsuits in which the
primary defendant and fewer than one-third of the plaintiffs were from
the same state would be heard in federal court. Any class-action suit
with more than one-third of plaintiffs and the primary defendant from
the same state still could be heard in state court. At least $5 million
would have to be at stake for a class-action lawsuit to be heard in
federal court.
Supporters of the class action legislation say they have at least 57
Senate votes -- three shy of a filibuster-proof majority. "We're very
close to getting the votes we need," Santorum said.
Under the original asbestos legislation that came out of the Senate
Judiciary Committee, insurers would contribute $45 billion and companies
that have been sued would pay $45 billion to the trust fund. The fund
would pay people who are sick from asbestos without their having to go
to court, but asbestos victims would lose their litigation rights.
Business, insurance, manufacturing and labor groups are holding private
negotiations to rework that legislation to make it more acceptable to
all of them.
"We need to find a deal that the insurers, the manufacturers and unions
-- and a portion of the trial bar -- can sign off on," Santorum said. "I
think it will pass overwhelmingly if we get the deal, but the question
is, do we get the deal?"
Opponents of the legislation were skeptical.
"They are not trying to create jobs ," said Joan Claybrook, president of
consumer group Public Citizen. "What (the two bills) would create is
more consumer layoffs, more death and injury and more corporate fraud,
because that's what virtually all of those cases involve."
Claybrook also thought that by including the legislation in a jobs
package, the GOP was virtually giving up on passing either bill this
year. "These are highly controversial bills," she said. "To throw them
into a jobs package, probably to protect President Bush, won't garner
them any more Democratic votes."
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