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Tobacco Litigation:
On behalf of the Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund, American Cancer
Society, American Heart Association, American Lung Association,
Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, and National African American
Tobacco Prevention Network, we successfully intervened in the federal
government's long-running civil RICO action against the tobacco
industry, United States v. Philip Morris USA Inc., No. 99-CV-2496
(GK), which alleges that the defendants engaged in a decades-long
conspiracy to mislead the American public about the addictiveness
and adverse health effects of cigarette smoke.
Judge Gladys Kessler granted our motion to intervene
after the federal government announced, during its closing argument,
that it would no longer ask for several remedies that it had developed
through its own witnesses. As a result of this ruling, the groups
became a party in the case and advocated the original remedies,
including a $130 billion smoking cessation program, as well as specific
restrictions on marketing tobacco products to children. In August,
2006, Judge Kessler issued a 1600 page opinion finding the tobacco
companies liable for decades of deceptive practices concerning the
addictiveness, and adverse public health impacts, of tobacco, and
the targeting of young people to become replacement smokers. United
States v. Philip Morris, 449 F. Supp 2d 1. We are currently
representing the intervenors in the appeals of that ruling, which
is pending in the D.C. Circuit.
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