WASHINGTON, June 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Supreme Court opened
 the door to much bigger verdicts against the major tobacco companies in a
 unanimous decision which said that many if not most smoker law suits
 against the companies can proceed in state courts where damages tend to be
 much higher, rather than in federal courts as the defendants had pushed
 for.
     "Smokers killed, disabled, or injured by cigarettes which they smoked
 because of tobacco company's lies now have a better chance of obtaining
 real justice in amounts which come closer to compensating them," said law
 professor John Banzhaf of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
 http://ash.org, a legal action antismoking organization.
     "Because the courts of many states have the potential for higher damage
 awards than corresponding federal courts, tobacco companies have long
 sought to transfer cases filed against them in state court to the federal
 court system, even on the flimsiest of reasons. Here they argued that
 pervasive regulation by the FTC provided a rationale."
     But, explains Banzhaf, that justification, if accepted by the Supreme
 Court, could have robbed state courts of virtually all of their
 jurisdiction over product liability cases since such products are regulated
 by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and sometimes also other
 agencies. Moreover, said Banzhaf, the irony is that cigarettes are
 virtually the only consumer product which is totally unregulated by the
 federal government.
     "State courts and state court juries which believe that illegal
 deceptive tactics by major cigarette manufacturers annually cause the death
 of almost half a million Americans, and cripple and disable millions more,
 should be able to award the huge damages such actions warrant without
 interference by the federal government," argues Banzhaf.
     Prof. Banzhaf was one of the first to suggest that cigarette makers
 could be successfully sued by smokers, and worked with attorneys like
 Melvin Belli to bring some of the earliest law suits. His organization,
 ASH, serves as the legal action arm of the antismoking movement, and has
 championed such law suits for almost forty years. It also assists in law
 suits against the tobacco industry.
     PROFESSOR JOHN F. BANZHAF III
     Executive Director and Chief Counsel
     Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
     2013 H Street, NW
     Washington, DC 20006, USA
     (202) 659-4310 //  http://ash.org
 
 

SOURCE Action on Smoking and Health