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CERTIORARI -- SUMMARY DISPOSITIONS 03-1427 EUROPEAN COMMUNITY, ET AL. V. RJR NABISCO, INC., ET AL. The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for further consideration in light of Pasquantino v. United States, 544 U.S. ____ (2005). [This graph only]
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In The Attorney General of Canada v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings, et al., No. 01-1317, Canada seeks $2 billion in lost taxes and law enforcement costs, and is suing under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which allows private parties to recover triple damages from criminal enterprises. The case is one of many the Supreme Court is scheduled to consider at its private conferences on May 9 and May 16 for possible review next term. . .
The District Court dismissed Canada's claim, writing that it represented "precisely the type of meddling in foreign affairs that the revenue rule forbids." . .
Judge Michael Kaplan, sitting by designation from the Western District of New York, dissented. He called the tax-gathering implications for Canada "incidental" to satisfying the RICO claim.
In briefs arguing that the Court should not take the case, the tobacco company contends that Congress never meant RICO to trump the revenue rule. Canada's theory "would allow any country, whether friend or foe, to avoid the trouble of negotiating a reciprocal tax-collection treaty with our government simply by invoking RICO in American courts," writes RJR lawyer Jeffrey Sutton, a partner at Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue in Columbus, Ohio, who has been nominated by the President George W. Bush for a spot on the 6th Circuit.
Citing the need to combat "transnational organized crime and international terrorism," Canada has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to revive the federal government's moribund $1-billion civil action against the U.S.-based R.J. Reynolds tobacco empire for alleged cigarette smuggling.
Canada's U.S. attorneys filed a petition in Washington this week asking the high court to hear an appeal of a U.S. federal appeals court decision last October that quashed the unprecedented Canadian suit for violating a centuries-old "revenue rule" that bars U.S. courts from interpreting or enforcing the tax laws of foreign nations.
The petition is a last-ditch bid to resuscitate what has now become the most expensive lawsuit ever launched by the federal government. . .
"We had what we believe to be a correct view of the law and that's why we are taking it to the United States Supreme Court," he said. "We are no less resolved and we are no less committed to our belief in how the revenue rule does not apply to our lawsuit in the United States."
He declined to comment on what action, if any, the federal government would take against the tobacco industry if the top court declines to hear the case. The court hears only a tiny percentage of the cases it receives.
Philip Morris Cos. and other cigarette makers won the final round in lawsuits by Guatemala, Nicaragua and Ukraine, as the U.S. Supreme Court turned aside an appeal by the three nations.
The suits sought to recoup the costs of treating millions of sick smokers under the national health care programs in those countries. A federal appeals court in Washington threw out the complaints in May.
U.S. judges have uniformly rejected tobacco lawsuits by foreign governments, generally concluding that any losses suffered by public treasuries are too tangental to the alleged wrongdoing to be addressed by a court. . . The case is Guatemala v. Tobacco Institute, 01-338.
The court reiterated its view of the potentially corrupting influence of money in politics, upholding a federal limit on the amount parties may spend in coordination with their own candidates. To exempt parties from the limits, as the Colorado Republican Party requested, would be to invite circumvention of other limits, Justice Souter said in Federal Election Commission v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee, No. 00-191. Justices Thomas, Kennedy and Scalia and Chief Justice Rehnquist dissented.
The court upheld the right of the tobacco industry to advertise its products to adult consumers, striking down a far-reaching advertising ban in Massachusetts. While taking different approaches to the case, all nine justices basically agreed in Lorillard Tobacco v. Reilly, No. 00-596, that the ban violated the tobacco advertisers' First Amendment rights. The court also found the state restrictions on advertising for cigarettes, as opposed to cigars and smokeless tobacco, to be pre-empted by federal law. The pre-emption analysis was 5 to 4. Justice O'Connor's opinion was joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and by Justices Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy. . .
The court upheld the right of the tobacco industry to advertise its products to adult consumers, striking down a far-reaching advertising ban in Massachusetts. While taking different approaches to the case, all nine justices basically agreed in Lorillard Tobacco v. Reilly, No. 00-596, that the ban violated the tobacco advertisers' First Amendment rights. The court also found the state restrictions on advertising for cigarettes, as opposed to cigars and smokeless tobacco, to be pre-empted by federal law. The pre-emption analysis was 5 to 4. Justice O'Connor's opinion was joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and by Justices Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy.
The signs touting Parliament Lights and Virginia Slims are among the first things a visitor sees upon entering the Father & Son Market in Brighton, Massachusetts, just down the street from the local high school.
Those cigarette signs, and thousands like them across the state, are under fire from state officials. New Massachusetts regulations would bar tobacco ads within 1,000 feet of a school or playground and are either visible from the street or set at children's eye level.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear arguments from Philip Morris Cos., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. and other tobacco companies seeking to invalidate the rules. Advertisers and convenience stores have joined the fight, hoping for a decision that will stem efforts around the country to put new limits on tobacco promotions.
``If they uphold the rules, it's going to embolden cities and states around the country to pursue all kinds of advertising restrictions,'' said Richard Kaplar, vice president of the communications industry-sponsored Media Institute, which opposes most ad limits. . .
A decision is due by June. . .
The companies say the 1965 Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act bars state advertising restrictions beyond the warning labels and broadcast ban required under the federal law. The law says that no requirements ``based on smoking and health shall be imposed under state law with respect to the advertising or promotion'' of properly labeled cigarettes. . .
Tobacco companies also cite the constitutional guarantee of free expression, asking the high court to extend a series of recent rulings enhancing commercial speech rights.
``Some people are seeing this as an ideal vehicle for the court to substantially strengthen protections for commercial speech,'' said David L. Hudson Jr., an attorney with the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University.
The Supreme Court refused to block the marketing of a generic chewing gum to help smokers give up cigarettes, rejecting an appeal in which the maker of Nicorette gum said the marketing violated its copyright.
The justices, acting without comment on Monday, let stand rulings that let Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc. sell the generic gum over the objections of Smithkline Beecham Consumer Healthcare, which has made and sold Nicorette gum since 1984.
At issue was how federal Food and Drug Administration regulations affect Smithkline's labeling copyrights. Lower courts said the copyright could not be enforced against a company required by the FDA to mimic Nicorette' s labeling. . .
Over-the-counter sales of the gum were approved in 1996 after exhaustive negotiations over the product's labeling -- a term that extends beyond packaging to include a user' s guide and an audiotape.
Smithkline' s exclusive right to market the over-the-counter version of Nicorette gum expired in 1999. . .
Watson won FDA approval in 1999 and began marketing its generic gum, sparking a copyright-infringement lawsuit by Smithkline.
Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law and the National Association of Protection and Advocacy Systems released the following:
On Wednesday, October 11, 2000, the United States Supreme Court will hear a case that could overturn the federal ban on discrimination against people with disabilities in access to public services such as education, health and mental health care. The case, University of Alabama v. Garrett, challenges the constitutionality of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The case began as two lawsuits, combined by the trial court. Patricia Garrett, 54, was director of women's services at the state university's medical center in Birmingham when she was treated for breast cancer. After being demoted and then transferred, apparently because her supervisor didn't like ``sick people,'' Garrett sued the hospital. Milton Ash, 56, a corrections officer with asthma, sued the state youth corrections agency for its failure to enforce the agency's no-smoking rule and to service the cars he had to drive so they wouldn't emit noxious fumes. . .
In both suits, the state argued that Congress does not have the power to enact legislation requiring states to pay money damages. The trial court accepted Alabama's argument, but last year the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed the decision, finding that the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the authority to pass such a law in order to enforce the guarantee of equal protection and due process of law.
A unanimous decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday limiting the scope of RICO actions will have a major impact on similar cases brought against the tobacco industry, said an attorney for Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation.
``While not concerning the tobacco industry, the high court's decision in the Rotella v. Wood case will severely restrict the ability of new and existing plaintiffs to bring RICO actions against tobacco manufacturers,'' said Ken Bass, B&W's attorney at the Washington offices of Kirkland & Ellis.
This will be the death knell of RICO treble damage claims against the tobacco industry . . . Every union health fund, health insurer, foreign country and other payor of health care costs that has filed against the industry under RICO was well aware of their alleged injury long before the four-year RICO limitations period expired. Accordingly, they should not be allowed to bring their claims under the Supreme Court's unanimous pronouncement in Rotella.Ken Bass, B&W's attorney at Kirkland & Ellis. Quoted in <i>B&W Says Supreme Court Decision Will Have Major Impact on Tobacco Suits</i>