Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Brookings Review
Publication Date
Winter 1998
ISSN
0745-1253
Page Number
14
Keywords
cigarette regulation, sales volume, taxes, medical costs
Disciplines
Health Law and Policy | Law
Abstract
Not all the provisions in the proposed legislation favor the states. Others, pertaining primarily to civil liability, are favor able to the financial health of the cigarette industry.
Most important, the legislation would end all present and future actions by state attorneys general. Cigarette companies would escape the potential liability they could face because of an unfavorable ruling about which costs count or because of an unpredictable jury.
The settlement would also preclude all future "addiction" or dependence claims, all class actions, and all claims for punitive damages. Individuals, however, could still sue for past conduct, so that in the long run the industry would not be free of the cur rent set of liability concerns.
The value of these restrictions on liability is hard to assess. Certainly the tobacco company payments stipulated by the legislation greatly exceed any liability sum that would be estimated based on past success rates in litigation. But the stakes involved are enormous, with the outcomes being highly correlated. Losing one state suit, for example, greatly increases the likelihood of losing others. Addiction claims likewise could snowball if the cigarette industry developed a losing track record. The global settlement gives the industry a safe harbor from the vagaries of the tort system and the randomness of jury awards.
Recommended Citation
W. Kip Viscusi,
Smoke and Mirrors: Understanding the New Scheme for Cigarette Regulation, 16 Brookings Review. 14
(1998)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-publications/1585