Word: liggetts
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...sooner did advance word of the settlement make the rounds last week than the rest of the tobacco industry raced into the North Carolina court to keep Liggett's papers under wraps. The cigarette makers claim that the documents are protected by the industry's joint defense privilege on attorney-client communications because they bear on Liggett's dealings with the other companies. However, a few files have already been distributed, and other documents are likely to leak out. "It's very hard to say 'attorney-client privilege' when half the world will be seeing them," says Henry Miller...
...Liggett settlement could not have been a complete surprise to its tobacco rivals--after all, the company had an earlier deal with five states--and they seem fully prepared to continue the case-by-case fights over liability. Indeed, the next big state suit, in Mississippi, is scheduled to go to trial in June...
...warning to smokers of all ages, Liggett will state on cigarette packs and in ads that smoking is an addictive habit. Liggett will also cooperate in suits against other tobacco companies and will allow its own employees to testify. Moreover, Liggett agreed to pay a quarter of its pretax profits to the states every year for the next 25 years, a promise not as impressive as it sounded. "Twenty-five percent of nothing is nothing," quipped one analyst...
...Legal attacks proved more successful. "We were always outgunned at first," says John Banzhaf, a law professor at George Washington University and founder of Action on Smoking & Health, an antitobacco group. But that nose-to-nose approach led to victories ranging from bans on smoking in public places to Liggett's surrender last week. Says David Logan, a law professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem: "The longest and most successful joint defense agreement in American industry has started to crumble...
...heat on tobacco shows no sign of lessening. With 22 states in the fray so far, others are certain to join in. And companies face more than a dozen private class-action suits and hundreds of individual lawsuits. At the same time, cigarette makers--minus Liggett--will soon troop to court in Greensboro, North Carolina, to hear a judge's decision on whether to allow new fda rules that say tobacco billboards must be at least 1,000 ft. from schools and that require young smokers to show photo...