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3rd Circuit Rejects Hospitals' RICO and Antitrust Suit Against Tobacco Companies 

Chalk up another victory for Big Tobacco now that a federal appeals court has refused to revive an antitrust and civil RICO suit brought by 16 nonprofit hospitals in Pennsylvania to seek reimbursement of the costs of treating non-paying patients with tobacco-related diseases.

In its 33-page opinion in Allegheny General Hospital v. Philip Morris Inc., the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that "because the hospitals' damages are too speculative and their injuries are too remote from the tobacco companies' alleged wrongdoing, proximate cause is lacking, and thus the hospitals do not have standing to sue." . .

U.S. Circuit Judge Julio Fuentes said the hospitals' allegations encompassed two theories -- an indirect-injury theory and a direct-injury theory.

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