Previous Story
Next Story
HOME PAGE
TODAY'S POST-DISPATCH
Business
Columns
Comics
Crossword
Editorial
Features
Food
Horoscopes
Lifestyle
Local news
News
Religion
Sports
Weather
Travel
This Week
Today's Links
WIRES
PROFILES
SPECIAL REPORTS
POSTNET EXTRAS
ARCHIVES
FORUMS
SPORTS EXTRA
EDUCATION
GET OUT
CLASSIFIEDS
INFORMATION
Main Index
6 p.m. Tuesday, March 24, 1998
By Kim Bell
Of the Post-Dispatch
Copyright 1998 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
``This would strip us of many of our defenses,'' said J. William Newbold, a lawyer for Philip Morris and other tobacco companies. ``It's horribly unfair.''
Designed to bolster Attorney General Jay Nixon's lawsuit against cigarette makers, the bill would let Missouri base its lawsuit on a class of Medicaid recipients rather than identifying individual smokers. It also would let the state use statistics alone when arguing that smoking causes disease.
At a packed hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, Newbold said the shortcut means that the tobacco industry couldn't defend itself like every other industry.
``Under this bill, the state does not have to identify the Medicaid recipient,'' Newbold said. ``So we don't know whose brand they smoked. We don't know how much they smoked ... we don't even know whether the person was diagnosed properly.''
Nixon said the bill, sponsored by Rep. Brian May, D-St. Louis, would assure Missouri a ``speedier and less costly victory in court.'' Only one state so far, Florida, has stripped the industry of these legal defenses. Florida did it with a 1994 law and two years later got an $11 billion settlement with the industry.
In a suit pending in St. Louis Circuit Court, Nixon charges that the tobacco industry targeted children in ad campaigns and lied about the addictiveness of nicotine, violating Missouri's consumer-protection laws.
Other states like Washington have had to slog through their suits, going to warehouses to retrieve thousands of doctors' charts, because they are working under the normal rules of court. Newbold said knowing each smoker is crucial to his defense. When he defended cigarette makers in Mississippi, Newbold's deposition of a female smoker revealed other potential causes of her heart disease: She drank heavily and was obese.
Politicians are trying to slam tobacco companies now, Newbold said, but what industry is next? Guns and liquor?
``Why not go after the beef manufacturers?'' said Newbold. ``How about a Big Mac. Want a Happy Meal for your kids, eat a cheeseburger, clog your arteries for 20 years and get Medicaid payments?''
Nixon said he'll stop with the tobacco companies.
``This industry is like no other, and no other industry need be worried,'' Nixon said. ``Unless you've put out a product for 40 years that you knew would kill people, and unless you've knowingly concealed that information, you do not have a problem.''
Bennett LeBow, the head of America's smallest cigarette company who is telling industry secrets, made a 10-minute speech to the committee at Nixon's request. LeBow, with the Liggett Group, repeated what he already has said to Congress and in Minnesota and Florida: That cigarettes are addictive and cause health hazards.
Last week, LeBow's company settled claims with Missouri and 13 other states seeking reimbursement for Medicaid. In all, the company has reached deals with attorneys general of 40 states. Liggett makes Eve, Lark, L&M and Chesterfield brands of cigarettes.
``I wanted to do the right thing,'' LeBow said in an interview. Some question that his motives are really altruistic, and LeBow knows he is despised by the other companies. ``They don't like me at all,'' he said. ``There's no love there.''
Nixon said he is frustrated that Congress won't act on a national settlement that attorneys generals across the country reached with the tobacco industry. Under that settlement, Missouri's share would be $4 billion to $5 billion. While Congress mulls over that settlement, states like Missouri are going after the industry in piecemeal fashion.
The bill would take away a key defense for the industry: ``assumption of risk.'' Labels on cigarette packs have warned of health problems for 33 years, Newbold said, and tobacco lawyers couldn't use that as a defense under May's bill.
The bill says that the Missouri Department of Social Services could recover full Medicaid costs of treating indigent smokers, estimated at $100 million a year. The suit could be brought five years after the death of the last surviving member of the Medicaid class.
Tobacco companies that must pay damages would not be allowed to offset that cost by the amount they have paid in state cigarette-sales taxes over the years, the bill says. Tobacco companies also could not offset damages by arguing that Medicaid costs over the long run would have been higher had the smoker not died.
John Britton, a lobbyist for The Tobacco Institute, said the product is legal and the makers are good corporate citizens that pay taxes. A longtime smoker himself, Britton said he always heard that smoking can stunt your growth but has no way of knowing if smoking causes cancer. Asked if he thought smoking was addictive, Britton replied simply: ``No.''
May, the sponsor, is also chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He said he would call for a vote on the bill this week.
May's bill is HB1852.
Copyright (c) 1998, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Previous Story | Next Story