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Pennsylvania Federal Court Judge Rejects Union Fund Class Action Against Philip Morris U.S.A.

NEW YORK, April 23 /PRNewswire/ -- In a ruling that should have widespread implications for tobacco litigation, United States District Court Judge John P. Fullam yesterday dismissed in its entirety, with prejudice, a class action brought by seven union welfare funds in Pennsylvania. The funds were seeking reimbursement for costs attributable to the alleged smoking related illnesses of their members.

``We said from the day that this lawsuit was filed that the plaintiffs' legal theories were totally without merit,'' said Steven B. Rissman, senior counsel for Philip Morris. ``We are delighted that the Court believes, as do we, that all the funds' claims are fundamentally flawed and that they have suffered no direct damages.''

In rejecting the funds' fraud and concealment allegations, the Court held that those claims were based on a theory ``entirely too speculative to be taken seriously.'' With respect to the antitrust claims, Judge Fullam held that funds had neither standing nor alleged an injury of the sort the antitrust laws were designed to prevent.

This ruling comes only a week after a similar case was thrown out by a federal district court judge in West Palm Beach, Florida. In that case, Judge Kenneth Ryskamp referred to the tobacco industry as having become the ``whipping-boy of American political discourse,'' and held ``[t]he fact that the tobacco industry has recently become very unpopular, however, is insufficient ground for this Court to overturn well-established common law rules and well-settled methods of statutory interpretation to permit recovery where recovery would otherwise be barred.''

``These decisions, coupled with the Iowa Supreme Court's ruling yesterday affirming the dismissal of the attorney general's Medicaid recovery claims, represent a trend across the country,'' said Rissman. ``We have confidence that courts will continue to apply the rule of law and resist creating bad precedence and bad public policy solely out of a desire to punish a politically unpopular industry.''

SOURCE: Philip Morris U.S.A.