Jump to full article: Minnesota Lawyer , 2009-01-09
Author: Minnesota Lawyer staff
Intro: Last month’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Altria Group Inc. v. Good, allowing plaintiffs to proceed with their claims over the marketing of “light” cigarettes, has revived lawsuits all over the country — and may inspire even more.
The Good case originated in Maine, but cases have been filed in many other states as well, including Minnesota, Missouri and Massachusetts, according to Minneapolis appellate attorney Kay Nord Hunt, one of the attorneys representing the Minnesota plaintiffs.
“Each state has its own version of consumer protection laws. [So they will] all be a little bit different,” she said.
Doug Blanke, director of the Tobacco Law Center at William Mitchell College of Law, said that the Good ruling removes one of the big clouds that has been hanging over these cases.
“It’s sort of a green light to go forward, or to file a new one,” he said. “It would be reasonable to think that this would encourage the filing of more cases or the energizing of cases that already exist.”
Blanke noted that plaintiffs in the light cigarette cases still face a number of other hurdles, however.
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