Interesting headline in the Boston,MA “GLOBE”. It seems Massachusetts will receive the first $1 billion out of the tobacco lawsuit settlement next month. As everyone knows, this is a result of the Federal govt. and the Attys. General of many states, reaching a settlement on the personal injury claims of people (sueing the cigarette manufacturers). Well, it didn’t take long…a Boston law firm announced they wanted half ($500 million!) as compensation for legal work they did! Of course, now the State has to defend itself against these sharks! I’d like to know if (in the opinion of other posters) most of the tobacco money will be eaten up in legal fees. Seems like they should have just awarded everything to the lawyers!
The lawsuit was all about money, not public health or “reimbursing the States for medical care.”
Does it cost the State even one penny to provide medical care? I thought it all comes out of your pockets, and they’re just the middleman.
It’s as though you send in your tax return to the IRS, and your refund check is written out to the postmaster.
But there’s hope. It sets a precedent for the States to sue an industry. We already have pending lawsuits by cities against gun manufacturers. Who knows what’s next? Alcohol, fatty-food suppliers, auto makers. . . .
The lawyers will be the big winners all around.
Incidentally, a couple of suits against gun manufacturers were thrown out a couple weeks ago. While those didn’t set precedent for other cases, the same logic could be used to throw the others out as well (sorry, don’t remember what that logic was).
And I really do think there are differences. Nobody has ever said that a gun isn’t dangerous. The tobacco companies continued to claim that and their products until fairly recently. It is not that they sell a dangerous product, per se, but that they lied about it for so long and tried to lead people to believe they would not be harmed by it.
–Informational and off-topic post ahead–
These are the recent dismissals of municipal lawsuit against the firearms industry.
Bridgeport, Connecticut - In his written opinion, Judge Robert McWeeny dismissed the case and ruled that Bridgeport and other cities, “… lack any statutory authorization to initiate such claims” of liability against the firearms industry.
Miami-Dade County, Florida - Circuit Judge Amy Dean dismissed the Miami-Dade County suit on Dec. 13. Judge Dean stated the county “lacks standing” to sue gun makers on behalf of shooting victims.
Cincinnati, Ohio - The suit, filed by the City of Cincinnati, was dismissed with prejudice this past October. In his decision, Judge Robert P. Ruehlman noted that lawful firearms manufacturers “… have no ability to control the misconduct of these third parties …” and further that
“… only the legislature has the power to engage in the type of
regulation which is being sought …”
This information is all from the NRA. Additionally, 14 states have passed legislation preventing municipalities from filing such lawsuits against gun manufacturers.
I would also like to take exception to this statement by David:
I’m not interested in starting a 2nd amendment debate, at least not here, but guns are not inherently dangerous. The improper use of them is dangerous.
Easy one-step assembly instructions.
Pour Beer A in Uncle B.
Just in case it went unnoticed, my comment about “there’s hope” was made with no small amount of sarcasm.
I meant it in the sense of “the states aren’t getting to spend all the money they were planning to get out of the tobacco companies, but they’ve at least established the precedent of ‘industry shakedown,’ so there will be other opportunities to feed their insatiable appetite for spending money.”
UncleBeer took exception when I said, “Nobody has ever said that a gun isn’t dangerous.” He responded:
Don’t read too much into what I said.
The proper use of them is dangerous as well – or at least can be, to somebody. If I properly use one to defend myself against an intruder, it will be dangerous – to the intruder. Guns are dangerous. They are designed to propel a projectile at high speeds towards a target. That target may be a deer, a squirrel, a paper target, or a man. But the design parameters for all except target-shooting guns are that they be dangerous. If they weren’t dangerous, nobody would really care about them.
On the other hand, cigarettes were not marketed as a product that was supposed to be dangerous. Yet they were. That is where I was going.
Tobacco evolves, people discover that smoking tobacco gives you a very mild high, farmers grow tobacco, farmers sell tobacco, cigarette companies make cigarettes, people smoke cigarettes, people get cancer, other people pay taxes that get channeled into a state funded medical insurance, the smokers die. Now, who’s fault is it?
Three possibilities:
a) the people who smoked (if they knew it wasn’t healthy)
b) the companies (for lying for many years about the harmful effects)
c) the medical insurance (for not making the doctors save those silly people’s lives).
Now, since the STATE is running the lawsuit…
they can’t sue (a) because they’re dead (and how do you sue someone for killing themselves?), or © because that’s them, so they’ve got to go after (b). Now, my question is, how does the STATE have the right to conduct the suit and how do they have the right to keep the money? The suit should be for the people and, if the state runs it, given back to them as refunds on wasted tax dollars.
What do you think the ‘State’ is going to spend it on? All the state’s revenue is spent on the state’s citizens. This money however, is especially earmarked for waging the war on smoking/cancer - it will fund advertising that tells kids not to smoke and help offset the costs of state funded medical aid to those whose ailments are attributable to smoking.
Cooper,
That’s just great…the state will spend millions, perhaps billions of dollars in the attempt to coerce its citizens from exercising their right to purchase and consume a legal product. I presume that you are in favor of this because you don’t happen to be a consumer of that product.
Well, don’t look back because the cigarette lawsuit is just the tip of the iceburg as the activist AG’s of the states attempt to expand this sort of end-run around the legislative process in order to exert their dominance over other areas of your life.
You have given them the go ahead. I hope you can live with yourself.
I open my mouth and the whole world turns smart
[Native American Hat On:]
There are NO instances of us getting lung cancer or heart disease from tobacco which is natural. Period.
The diseases that tobacco causes come from the way they are cured, which is in sugar. Sugar causes most of the diseases that tobacco is thought to cause.
[Native American Hat Off:]
Mitakuye Oyasin
Phaedrus