![]() Key documents: Complaint, motion for summary judgment, Court decision District Court for the District of Massachusetts, 2016)Ĭase details: No. Health Warnings and Other First Amendment IssuesĪmerican Academy of Pediatrics et al. On June 19, 2023, the Court, noting the parallels between the fraudulent conduct at the heart of the DOJ’s RICO case on cigarettes and the allegations against Altria concerning its involvement with Juul e-cigarettes, ruled for the intervenors and ordered Altria to post on a website the internal documents it produced in discovery in the Juul multidistrict litigation and to maintain the documents on its website for one year, allowing others the opportunity to download the documents for more permanent retention. ![]() Shortly before the expiration date, the public health intervenors filed a motion asking the Court to clarify that the 2006 document production order requires Philip Morris and its parent company Altria to post internal documents produced in discovery in the multidistrict litigation involving claims against Juul and Altria concerning fraudulent activity surrounding the marketing of Juul e-cigarettes. That obligation was to expire on September 1, 2021. ![]() One of the other remedies ordered by the Court was a continuing obligation on the defendant companies, including Philip Morris, to post on a company website internal documents it produced in other litigation concerning “smoking and health, marketing, addiction, low-tar or low-nicotine cigarettes, or less hazardous cigarette research,” which had been the subject matters of the fraud. On December 6, 2022, the Court approved the settlement, in the form of a consent order. As the trial date approached, the parties, including the public health intervenors, reached a settlement that would ensure that the corrective statements would appear at almost 200,000 retail establishments where cigarettes are sold for a period of 21 months. The case was remanded to the District Court for consideration of that issue and the Court set a trial for June 2022. However, although the District Court had also ordered corrective statements to appear at the point of sale, the Court of Appeals reversed that remedy on the ground that the District Court had failed to adequately account for the interests of the retailers that would be required to display the statements. ![]() The companies exhausted their appeals in 2017 and corrective statements were implemented through required ads on three major TV networks (for 52 weeks starting November 2017), in full-page ads in the Sunday editions of 50 major newspapers (November 2017 to March 2018), in onserts on cigarette packs (for 12 weeks over a two-year period) and on company websites (indefinitely). Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The companies fought against the corrective statement requirement for eleven years, including four different appeals to the U.S. Among the remedies ordered by the Court were corrective statements to be issued by the companies telling the truth about the hazards of cigarettes. As the trial was ending in 2005, Tobacco-Free Kids and five other public health groups successfully intervened in the case to argue for strong remedies to prevent future RICO violations by the defendant cigarette companies. In this historic case, filed by the Clinton Justice Department in 1999, a federal court found that the major cigarette companies had violated federal anti-racketeering laws by engaging in a massive conspiracy over several decades to defraud the American people by lying about the health effects of smoking and the marketing of cigarettes to children. Key documents: Consent order, 2006 Opinion, 2023 Juul MDL document production opinion District Court for the District of Columbia, 2006)Ĭase details: Civil No. RICO Remedies Against Cigarette Companies Below is a description of federal cases in which the Campaign has participated. In numerous other federal cases, Tobacco-Free Kids has filed briefs as amicus curiae (“friend of the court”), joined by various medical, public health, and community organizations, defending tobacco control measures against legal attack by tobacco companies. Food and Drug Administration on behalf of public health organizations, seeking to compel the agency to more aggressively regulate the tobacco industry. In federal courts, the Campaign has brought lawsuits against the U.S. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids has an active litigation program, participating in tobacco control cases in federal and state courts. COVID-19: QUIT SMOKING AND VAPING TO PROTECT YOUR LUNGS.THE TOLL OF TOBACCO IN THE UNITED STATES.
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