http://www.tobacco.org/newsfeed/org/scotus.rss Latest top tobacco news headlines en-us http://www.wlf.org/upload/litigation/pressrelease/011812RS.pdf http://tobacco.org/news/333057.html The Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) yesterday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to review (and ultimately overturn) a Florida state court decision that prevents the nation’s major cigarette manufacturers from defending themselves against charges that they acted wrongfully in marketing their products. WLF charged that the Florida court are conducting product liability lawsuits in a manner that violates the federal constitutional due process rights of defendants. In a brief filed in support of two petitions for review filed with the Supreme Court – Philip Morris USA Inc. v. Campbell and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. v. Martin – WLF argued that the U.S. Constitution requires state courts to apply their procedural rules in a consistent manner. If those rules would permit other defendants to defend themselves fully against tort claims, then Florida must afford those same procedural protections to tobacco companies, WLF argued. Washington Legal Foundation Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www.theonion.com/articles/supreme-court-overturns-right-v-wrong,27077/ http://tobacco.org/news/332485.html Striking down the judicial precedent that established the legal supremacy of right over wrong more than two centuries ago, the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned Right v. Wrong. The landmark reversal—a bitterly contested 5-4 decision that has been widely praised by murderers, rapists, bigots, usurers, and pro-wrong advocates nationwide—nullifies all previously lawful forms of right and makes it very difficult for Americans to make ethical decisions or be generally decent human beings without facing criminal charges. "It is the opinion of this court that the Constitution was crafted in such a manner as to uphold and encourage practices that are not right and, ideally, are very wrong," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority, which also in­cluded Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, and John Roberts. "Despite the compelling case for goodness, truth, and justice made by our predecessors in the case of Right v. Wrong, we firmly believe that malice, dishonesty, and injustice were the framers' original intent." . . . Justice Stephen Breyer chose to read his dissenting opinion aloud before the court, a rare gesture apparently aimed at expressing the full measure of his disgust with the verdict. "The court needs to overturn this ruling immediately because, simply put, it's the right thing to do," said the associate justice, who, along with his colleagues joining him in the minority, was then arrested by Capitol Police, placed into custody, and is currently awaiting trial. The Onion Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://act.rebuildthedream.com/sign/overturn_citizens_united http://tobacco.org/news/332407.html Two years ago, the infamous Citizens United Supreme Court ruling gave corporations like Exxon or Bank of America approval to spend millions of dollars buying elections. It is already happening, and it is wrong. Changing Supreme Court decisions can take decades. A better alternative is to pass a constitutional amendment. Support from President Obama would give a big, early boost to the movement for an amendment. The president has already condemned Citizens United as a bad ruling. If the president comes out in support of the amendment, it will inspire millions of people to believe in the idea and a lot of members of Congress will follow, too. Sign the Petition President Obama: Support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to boot big money out of politics and to overturn the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court ruling. Rebuild the Dream Sun, 22 Jan 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2012/01/occupy-the-courts-protests-hit-supreme-court-and-federal-courthouses-nationwide-.html http://tobacco.org/news/332405.html The “occupy” movement took its campaign against corporate domination to the federal judiciary on Friday, storming the U.S. Supreme Court building and demonstrating at other federal courthouses nationwide to protest the high court’s 2010 “Citizens United” decision. “Corporations are not persons, and money is not political speech!” proclaimed “Occupy the Courts” leader David Cobb in front of several hundred people at a grassy area on U.S. Capitol grounds across the street from the Supreme Court. . . . The protests marked the two-year anniversary Saturday of the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which struck down restrictions on independent expenditures by corporation and unions in election campaigns. Critics say the ruling has injected millions of dollars into campaigns, often in the form of attack advertising funded by independent “Super-PACs” that cannot be directly traced or imputed to candidates. Several leaders of the protest Friday said coverage of the Super-PACs and their impact on the Republican presidential primaries has helped galvanize opposition. “We are seeing how this disgusting decision is corrupting our system,” said Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, a longtime D.C. activist who helped organize Friday’s protests. “And we ain’t seen nothing yet. Wait until the races get underway, and this will be influencing congressional races, everything.” Asked why she was demonstrating at the Court, she said, “This is the scene of the crime.” Some of the protesters are hoping to build on Friday’s actions and push for a constitutional amendment that would overturn Citizens United by stating that money is not speech and corporations are not persons under the law. The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times Fri, 20 Jan 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://action.citizen.org/p/salsa/event/common/public/search.sjs?distributed_event_KEY=650&tag=cuvfecCAI http://tobacco.org/news/332208.html Enter your zip code below & sign up to attend an action near you! . . . Occupy the Courts Portland OR: Rally at Pioneer Square Jan. 20th, 2012 Gather 11;30 am Rally 12 Noon March ... Portland, OR Public Citizen citizensunited@occupyboston.org Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/01/03/montana-supreme-court-defies-citizens-united-decision-upholds-state-ban/?mod=google_news_blog http://tobacco.org/news/331479.html Montana's 1912 Corrupt Practices Act blocks certain political speech by corporations;  plaintiffs in the case sought to have the century-old law declared unconstitutional. Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock, who represented the state in defending the ban, said the case was the first to examine state laws and elections. Montana has "a compelling interest" to uphold its campaign-finance laws that include both restrictions and disclosure requirements, the court held, according to the Great Falls Tribune. The state Supreme Court overturned a lower state court ruling, saying it couldn't find that current laws unfairly impeded corporate owners from engaging in political activity. The court also said political corporations like American Tradition Partnership, which brought the suit challenging the 1912 law, "act as conduits for anonymous spending by others and represent a threat to the 'political marketplace.'" Corporations can remain politically active by forming voluntary political action committees, which are subject to disclosure requirements, the court said. "With this ruling, the Montana Supreme Court now sets up the first test case for the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit its Citizens United decision, a decision which poses a direct and serious threat to our democracy," John Bonifaz of Free Speech For People, a group that seeks to return corporations to being economic, rather than political, entities, said in a statement. American Tradition Partnership Executive Director Donald Ferguson said in  a statement the Montana Supreme court showed "contempt" for the law of the land and "thumbed its nose at the United States Supreme Court." Wall Street Journal Blogs joe.palazzolo@wsj.com (Sam Favate - Law Blog - WSJ) Tue, 03 Jan 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/citizens-united-montana-supreme-court-corporate-spending_n_1182168.html http://tobacco.org/news/331478.html The Montana Supreme Court has put itself on a collision course with the U.S. Supreme Court by upholding a century-old state law that bans corporate spending in state and local political campaigns. The law, which was passed by Montana voters in 1912 to combat Gilded Age corporate control over much of Montana's government, states that a "corporation may not make ... an expenditure in connection with a candidate or a political party that supports or opposes a candidate or a political party." In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its landmark Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, struck down a similar federal statute, holding that independent electoral spending by corporations "do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption" that such laws were enacted to combat. . . . To reverse the Montana Supreme Court, however, the justices would have to extract themselves from a quandary of their own making, noted professor Rick Hasen of the University of California-Irvine Law School on his popular Election Law Blog. "If the Court were being honest in Citizens United," Hasen wrote, "it would have said something like: We don't care whether or not independent spending can or cannot corrupt; the First Amendment trumps this risk of corruption." But by "dress[ing] up its value judgment ... as a factual statement," continued Hasen, the U.S. Supreme Court must now explain why the Montana Supreme Court was not correct to consider the factual record when it came to justifying corporate spending limits in campaign finance laws. By a 5-2 vote this past Friday, the Montana Supreme Court declined to recognize the common understanding that Citizens United bars all laws limiting independent electoral spending. Instead, Chief Justice Mike McGrath, writing on behalf of the majority, called on the history surrounding the state law to show that corporate money, even if not directly contributed to a campaign, can give rise to corruption. Huffington Post mike.sacks@huffingtonpost.com (Mike Sacks ) Wed, 04 Jan 2012 05:00:00 GMT http://www2.journalnow.com/business/2011/dec/27/wsbiz01-reynolds-american-chooses-smoking-case-to--ar-1752931/ http://tobacco.org/news/331120.html According to the legal website Law360, Reynolds has filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to overturn a $28.3 million jury verdict in Florida in favor of Mathilde Martin, whose husband, Benny, died of lung cancer after decades of smoking unfiltered Lucky Strike cigarettes. Reynolds spokesman Bryan Hatchell said Monday that the company did not have a comment about the filing. The Florida Supreme Court declined to accept Reynolds' appeal of the jury verdict. Reynolds said in the petition that the jury verdict was reached without the respondent "either proving essential elements of her claims or demonstrating that a prior jury had actually decided those elements in her favor." Because there have been several victories by plaintiffs and manufacturers at lower court levels, Reynolds is confident the U.S. Supreme Court will agree to the request. Reynolds said it has placed a combined $63 million into accrual for the four Engle cases that have advanced through the appellate court. Reynolds' profit has been affected by significant legal fees for two consecutive quarters. Winston-Salem Journal rcraver@wsjournal.com (RICHARD CRAVER * Winston-Salem Journal) Tue, 27 Dec 2011 05:00:00 GMT http://www.law360.com/appellate/articles/296241/rj-reynolds-takes-28-3m-liability-verdict-to-high-court http://tobacco.org/news/330977.html RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co. asked the U.S. Supreme Court last week to overturn a $28.3 million jury verdict in Florida in favor of a woman whose husband died of lung cancer after decades of smoking unfiltered Lucky Strike cigarettes. In a petition for writ of certiorari filed Dec. 16 and obtained Thursday, the tobacco company asked the Supreme Court to reconsider the jury verdict after the Supreme Court of Florida declined to accept the appeal in July. RJ Reynolds argues that the lower court's decision to preclude litigation based on the idea that a prior jury reasonably could have decided the issues involved violated the doctrine of issue preclusion, which is limited to issues that have been “actually litigated and resolved in a valid court,” and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. “As a result, respondent obtained a $28.3 million judgment without either proving essential elements of her claims or demonstration that a prior jury had actually decided those elements in her favor,” the petition said. The Martin suit, initiated by Mathilde Martin, whose husband, Benny, died in 1995, stemmed from the so-called Engle class action . . . Also on Dec. 16, Philip Morris USA Inc. and Liggett Group LLC asked the Supreme Court to overturn a $3.4 million jury verdict in Florida in favor of a man whose wife died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, citing similar concerns about due process. Law360 Fri, 23 Dec 2011 05:00:00 GMT http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2011/12/tobacco-companies-preparing-for-supreme-court-review-of-graphic-labels.html http://tobacco.org/news/330652.html In a new motion (PDF) filed today in Washington federal court, the cigarette manufacturers suing the Food and Drug Administration over new graphic label requirements hinted that they already have their sights set on the Supreme Court. On Nov. 29, the agency appealed U.S. District Judge Richard Leon's order granting a preliminary injunction to delay enforcement of the rules. The cigarette companies are now asking Leon to speed up his review of pending cross-motions for summary judgment for the sake of "judicial economy." The losing side on summary judgment is likely to appeal, the companies wrote, so it would be more efficient to get both appeals on the appeals court’s docket at the same time. That way, they wrote, the appellate judges could see how Leon ruled on the merits of the case and also have an opportunity to consolidate the appeals. The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times Mon, 12 Dec 2011 05:00:00 GMT http://www.law360.com/articles/292850/big-tobacco-wants-quicker-appeal-in-graphic-label-suit http://tobacco.org/news/330446.html R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and other cigarette makers on Monday pushed a federal judge to make a quick ruling in their lawsuit to block graphic warning labels on cigarette packages, saying that a ruling on the merits could speed the case toward the U.S. Supreme Court. . . . "Perhaps most importantly, resolution of the merits of this dispute would provide the court of appeals and, potentially, the Supreme Court, with a clean vehicle to address the merits of plaintiffs’ challenge to the new graphic warnings," the motion said. Law360 Tue, 13 Dec 2011 05:00:00 GMT http://www.alternet.org/story/153345/the_real_history_of_%22corporate_personhood%22%3a_meet_the_man_to_blame_for_corporations_having_more_rights_than_you?page=entire http://tobacco.org/news/330204.html The following is an excerpt of Jeffrey Clement's Corporations Are Not People: Why They Have More Rights Than You Do and What You Can Do About It.) . . . Much about these accounts must be true, but none tells the whole story of Lewis Powell. All of them, and even the principal Powell biography, omit the details of how he used his gifts to advance a radical corporate agenda. It is impossible to square this corporatist part of Powell’s life and legacy with any conclusion of “modest” or “restrained” judging. Powell titled his 1971 memo to the Chamber of Commerce “Attack on American Free Enterprise System.” . . . The roots of Citizens United lie in Powell’s 1971 strategy to use “activist” Supreme Court judges to create corporate rights. “Under our constitutional system,” Powell told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, “especially with an activist-minded Supreme Court, the judiciary may be the most important instrument for social, economic and political change.” Powell’s call for a corporate rights campaign should not be misunderstood as a “conservative” or “moderate” reaction to the excesses of “liberals” or “big government.” Rather, to understand the perspective of Powell and his allies is to understand the difference between a conservative and a corporatist. Powell and the Tobacco Corporations Show the Way By the time of his 1971 memorandum, Lewis Powell was a director of more than a dozen international corporations, including Philip Morris Inc., a global manufacturer and seller of cigarettes. Powell joined Philip Morris as a director in 1964, when the United States surgeon general released the most devastating and comprehensive report to date about the grave dangers of smoking. He remained a director of the cigarette company until his appointment to the Supreme Court in 1971. Powell also advised the Tobacco Institute, the cigarette lobby that finally was exposed and stripped of its corporate charter in the 1990s after decades of using phony science and false statements to create a fraudulent “debate” about smoking and health. The story of the cigarette corporations and their response to public efforts to address addiction, smoking, and health is a big piece of the larger story of how corporate rights took such significant pieces of the Constitution and American democracy. . . . Hints of this work can be seen in the Philip Morris annual reports issued during Powell’s tenure as a director, which reflected the broader campaign of the company and the cigarette industry to discredit the science about smoking and health and to misrepresent the facts to keep people smoking and get young people to start. We now know, thanks to the 2007 findings of a federal judge, that many of the assertions in these annual reports were knowingly false. According to the reports themselves, these statements and others were made “on behalf of the Board of Directors,” including Powell: • 1964: “The industry continues to support major research efforts directed towards resolving the many unanswered questions on smoking and health.” • 1967: “The year 1967 was marked by an intensification of exaggerated claims made relative to the possible adverse health effects of smoking on health. ... We deplore the lack of objectivity in so important a controversy. ... Unfortunately the positive benefits of smoking which are so widely acknowledged are largely ignored by many reports linking cigarettes and health, and little attention is paid to the scientific reports which are favorable to smoking.” • 1967: “We would again like to state that there is no biological proof that smoking is causally related to the diseases and conditions claimed to be statistically associated with smoking ... no proof that the tar and nicotine levels in smoke are significant in relation to health.” . . . Absent convincing evidence, it might be reckless to say that Philip Morris and the other tobacco corporations engaged in a willful, aggressive, wide-ranging conspiracy and racketeering enterprise so that the corporations could sell more products that kill people. But now that the evidence is in, we know that that is exactly what happened. We know this thanks to scientists, victims of the conspiracy, state attorneys general (both Democrats and Republicans), the United States Department of Justice (under both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush), and Judge Gladys Kessler and a panel of U.S. Court of Appeals judges appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George H. W. Bush. . . . In January 1972, President Nixon filled two Supreme Court vacancies, appointing Powell to one seat and William Rehnquist, a conservative Republican lawyer from Phoenix, Arizona, to the other. Rehnquist never hid his conservative views, which were well known and, to some, controversial. At the same time, neither Congress nor most Americans knew of Powell’s radical corporatist views. In his Senate confirmation hearing, no one asked about his recent proposal to the Chamber of Commerce recommending the use of an “activist-minded Supreme Court” to impose those views on the nation. No one asked because neither Powell nor the Chamber of Commerce disclosed the memo during his confirmation proceedings. Once on the Court, these two Nixon appointees followed very different paths. Justice Powell would go on to write the Court’s unprecedented decisions creating a new concept of “corporate speech” in the First Amendment. Using this new theory, the Court struck down law after law in which the states and Congress sought to balance corporate power with the public interest. With increasing assertiveness by the Supreme Court even after Powell retired in 1987, the new corporate rights theory has invalidated laws addressing the environment, tobacco and public health, food and drugs, financial regulation, and more. Powell helped shape a new majority to serve the interest of corporations, but for years, several vigorous dissents resisted the concept of corporate rights. AlterNet.org Tue, 06 Dec 2011 05:00:00 GMT http://www.law360.com/articles/288535/supreme-court-won-t-butt-into-tobacco-settlement-case http://tobacco.org/news/329594.html The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected General Tobacco's request that it review a refusal by Arkansas' highest court to stay a dispute over the 1998 master settlement agreement between states and tobacco companies in favor of arbitration. In a petition for certiorari filed in August, Vibo Corp., doing business as General Tobacco, had asked the court to vacate and remand a Supreme Court of Arkansas ruling in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, which came down after the... Law360 Mon, 28 Nov 2011 05:00:00 GMT http://www.madisonrecord.com/news/238594-illinois-supreme-court-sends-philip-morris-back-to-madison-county http://tobacco.org/news/326788.html Philip Morris is back in Madison County. The lawsuit which resulted in a $10.1 billion verdict against cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris is expected to return to Madison County court after the Illinois Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to hear an appeal by Philip Morris that could have ended the case. In 2003, then-Circuit Judge Nicholas Byron ruled that consumers were injured when Philip Morris advertised certain cigarettes as "light" and containing "lowered tar and nicotine." At trial, plaintiffs' attorney Stephen Tillery said the company knew Marlboro Lights were not safer and could be more damaging to smokers' health than regular Marlboro Reds cigarettes. Madison County Record christina.stueve@gmail.com (Christina Stueve) Thu, 29 Sep 2011 04:00:00 GMT http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110928006400/en/Landmark-10-Billion-Judgment-Philip-Morris-Korein http://tobacco.org/news/326782.html The landmark $10.1 billion verdict against cigarette-maker Philip Morris in a lawsuit filed by Korein Tillery won the support of the Illinois Supreme Court today when it refused to hear an appeal by Philip Morris that could have ended the case. The momentous victory by Korein Tillery in the Illinois Supreme Court effectively reopens the $10.1 billion judgment – one of the largest in United States history – and returns the Price v. Philip Morris case to the trial court in the Third Judicial Circuit Court in Madison County, Illinois, for further proceedings . . . In opposing Philip Morris’ petition, lead plaintiffs’ attorney Stephen M. Tillery argued that the evidence in the Good case should be applied to the Price case because it proved that “Philip Morris previously prevailed in this matter by advancing an inaccurate version of the historical record that now has been thoroughly rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court and the FTC.” Tillery also pointed out that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) had “alleged that cigarette manufacturers (including Philip Morris) and tobacco-related trade organizations violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act by engaging in a conspiracy to deceive the American public about, among other things, the purported health benefits from ‘Light’ and ‘low tar’ cigarettes.” Tillery quoted the DOJ allegations that cigarette-makers marketed those cigarettes as safer than regular cigarettes “despite either lacking evidence to substantiate their claims or knowing them to be false.” Business Wire Wed, 28 Sep 2011 04:00:00 GMT