The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments this fall in a Maine lawsuit over light cigarettes that was filed more than two years ago in U.S. District Court in Bangor.
The nation's high court will not rule on the underlying merits of the case, Bangor attorney Samuel Lanham, who represents the plaintiffs, said Monday. Instead, the court will consider the question of pre-emption - a legal doctrine holding that federal laws take precedence over some state laws.
Lanham's clients, three Maine residents who each smoked light cigarettes for more than 15 years, sued Philip Morris USA Inc., and its parent company, Altria Group Inc., in August 2005 under the Maine Unfair Trade Practice Act.
"What's exciting is that this is an opportunity for Maine people to potentially have a voice at that level," Lanham said Monday. "As their attorney, I can't lose sight of the fact that the plaintiffs chose to smoke light cigarettes because they believed light cigarettes offered lower tar and nicotine.
"It's exciting for them to have the opportunity for their measure of justice," he continued. "It's discouraging this is about their right to get to the merits of the case."
The plaintiffs argued that the manufacturers' claims that light cigarettes were lower in tar and nicotine than regular "full-flavor" cigarettes when they actually deliver the same amount of tar and nicotine constituted unfair and deceptive trade practices under Maine law. They are seeking the return of the money they paid to purchase the cigarettes, punitive damages and attorney fees.
In August, a three-judge panel of the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston unanimously reversed a decision by U.S. District Judge John Woodcock that granted the tobacco companies' summary judgment motion. The appellate court found that the plaintiffs' claims are not pre-empted by the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act.
They also are not pre-empted by the Federal Trade Commission's oversight of cigarette advertising, nor barred by exemptions in the Maine law, the court found.
In a similar lawsuit, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans agreed with Woodcock and dismissed a case there.
Altria Group and Philip Morris both of Richmond, Va., asked the nation's high court to decide the matter. A date for oral arguments has not been set. Briefs from both sides are due by the end of March.
This appears to be the first case from a Maine court the justices have agreed to hear in more than a decade. The last appeal concerned a Bangor dentist's refusal to treat an HIV-positive patient in his office. The Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision issued in June 1998 ruled against Dr. Randon Bragdon and in favor of plaintiff Sidney Abbott, who then lived in Bangor and had sought treatment from Bragdon.
It was the first high court case in the history of the AIDS epidemic and it handed people with HIV their greatest legal victory in the history of the disease, the Bangor Daily News reported. The justices ruled that federal disabilities law protects even those with no visible symptoms.
The appeal in Maine's cigarette case is part of the tobacco industry's efforts to head off a wave of state-based challenges regarding light cigarettes while it is appealing a federal judge's order to stop marketing cigarettes as "low tar" "ultra light" or "mild" because they mislead consumers, the Associated Press reported Friday.
In the government's landmark case against tobacco companies, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler of Washington, D.C., said the companies "distorted the truth about low tar and light cigarettes so as to discourage smokers from quitting."
That case is on appeal with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
A separate federal lawsuit filed by smokers is pending in New York. The class-action suit alleges tobacco companies violated federal racketeering laws by promoting light cigarettes as a lower-risk alternative to regular cigarettes even though their internal documents showed they knew the risks were about the same. The class may consist of as many as 60 million people, attorneys said.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York is considering whether the lawsuit can proceed as a class action or whether smokers must file individually.
The basis for the claims against the companies is similar in all the lawsuits: The companies knew that smokers may compensate for the lower tar and nicotine yields by taking deeper puffs holding the smoke in their lungs longer or smoking more cigarettes.
"In this world of fed regulation," Lanham said, referring to the cigarette companies' legal strategy, "corporations are hiding behind theories of pre-emption in order to prevent ordinary citizens who have been wronged by corporate deception and greed from having their day in court."