Tobacco.org

• Tobacco companies ordered to pay up  

Now that higher courts have, for the most part, upheld a 2004 New Orleans jury verdict that the nation's biggest tobacco companies should pay to help thousands of Louisianians kick the smoking habit, the time has come for the companies pay up, a Civil District Court judge decreed Monday.

Refusing pleas from tobacco companies for a new trial in the case, Judge Richard Ganucheau ordered the companies to put $263.5 million in the court registry for a statewide, 10-year stop-smoking program that the jury ordered after deciding that the firms had put out distorted information about tobacco's effects on health. . . .

Ganucheau's Monday ruling, the latest in a class-action case that has dragged out for 12 years, was greeted by the plaintiffs' lead lawyer, Russ Herman, as a long-overdue step that will finally get justice for eligible smokers who haven't been able to quit. Some people who needed the help have died while the case has been hung up so long in appeals, he said.

But New Orleans lawyer Phil Wittmann, attorney for one of the defendants, Philip Morris USA, said the companies will ask Ganucheau to hold off requiring them to put up any money until they can ask higher courts to review the matter.

Jump to full article »