Defense tries to halt class-action case trial
Jump to full article: New Orleans (LA) Times Picayune, 2001-09-18
Author: Susan Finch / Staff writer/The Times-Picayune
Intro: Whether published remarks by a Boston attorney for the plaintiffs in a statewide class-action lawsuit against the nation's largest tobacco companies justify scuttling the trial before it begins was one of the debates at a Monday hearing in Orleans Parish Civil District Court.
Philip Morris attorney Phil Wittmann told Civil District Judge Richard Ganucheau that Northeastern University School of Law professor Richard Daynard's comments in a Sept. 4 story in The Times-Picayune were prejudicial to the defense and violated the judge's August order barring both sides from speaking with reporters.
Daynard heads his law school's Tobacco Products Liability Project, which encourages lawsuits against tobacco companies as a public health strategy.
The gag order, which tobacco companies say is unconstitutional, is among several issues pending. The trial, which was to start Sept. 5, has been put on hold while various courts consider them.
The Louisiana Supreme Court is still reviewing whether to order Ganucheau to pick new jurors in the case
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