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Light Cigarette Suit 1st On Docket

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Los Angeles Times

Published: October 7, 2008

WASHINGTON - More than 45 million Americans are smokers, and nearly 85 percent of them buy "light" cigarettes such as Marlboro Lights, which are advertised as having lower tar and nicotine.

The Supreme Court, on the opening day of its term, heard arguments Monday on whether the tobacco industry can be held liable for allegedly perpetrating a massive fraud on the smoking public.

In recent decades, most smokers switched to "light" cigarettes, believing they posed less of a health danger. But studies have shown this common-sense view is wrong. Although machine tests showed "light" cigarettes emitted less tar when burned, smokers inhale about the same amount of tar when they puff on a "light" cigarette, the studies found.

The tobacco industry faces more than 30 class-action lawsuits from smokers and ex-smokers who seek billions of dollars in damages and claim they were fooled by the marketing of light and low-tar cigarettes.

But the justices sounded receptive to an argument from the cigarette makers that all these lawsuits should be thrown out because they conflict with the federal law that requires warning labels on cigarette packs.

That law shielded tobacco companies from any other "requirement respecting the promotion of cigarettes based on smoking and health," Washington attorney Theodore Olson told the court. The former U.S. solicitor general was representing the Altria Group, the parent company of Philip Morris and the maker of Marlboro Lights.

CASES THAT WON'T BE HEARD

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear cases in which:

•A jury foreman read passages of the Bible to holdout jurors who subsequently voted to impose the death penalty in a Texas murder case.

•Anti-abortion activists were attempting to have overturned a multimillion-dollar verdict handed down over their use of "wanted" posters to identify abortion clinic doctors.

•A convicted murderer sought a requirement that jury verdicts be unanimous in all criminal cases.

•An anti-abortion group won its long legal fight to force the state of Arizona to issue "choose life" license plates.

•Dish Network Corp. was trying to overturn a $74 million judgment for violating a patent held by TiVo Inc. involving digital video recorders.

•An ex-soldier was sentenced to five years in prison when a judge wrongly thought the law required him to serve time.

The Associated Press

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