Tobacco.org

• Smokers, tobacco firms to meet in court again  

Attorneys for Louisiana smokers and the nation's biggest tobacco companies will square off in a hearing today on a case that made headlines in 2004 when a Civil District Court jury ruled that the firms should pay $519 million to help Louisianians kick the smoking habit for conspiring to mislead the public about tobacco's effects.

Retired Civil District Judge Richard Ganucheau, who presided over the trial that led to the jury's verdict, scheduled the hearing to help him decide where the two sides in the case stand in light of a state appeals court's move last fall to slash the jury award to $279 million.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeal ruling, which the state and U.S. Supreme Courts have let stand, also limited participation in the smoking cessation programs the jury ordered to people whose claims for such assistance accrued before Sept. 1, 1988, the effective date of the Louisiana products liability act.

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