Just How Violent Was The Fourth?
Violent Weekend Concludes
1-thumb-110x110-371321.jpg)
Farmer's Market Roundup - Summer Harvests
We just can’t get enough of our cigarette stories, eh? We get our half-assed smoking ban. We get the mayor’s cigarette tax hike. And now we get the Illinois Supreme Court overturning a verdict that was supposed to cost Philip Morris $10 billion.
Yes. Billion. With a “b,” as in “buttload of cash.”
Here’s the low-down: a plaintiff brought a class action against the defendant, Philip Morris. And before we go any further, Philip Morris” used to be called Philip Morris, Inc.” but is now Philip Morris USA, Inc.” Therefore, in the text of the Illinois Supreme Court opinion, the justices don’t call Philip Morris Philip Morris,” they call it “PMUSA.”
Maybe it’s a rebranding, like with J-Lo … but for evil. (Allegedly evil. Don’t sue us.) Or maybe it’s more like The Artist Formerly Known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince. It’s the Soulless Corporate Manslaughterers Formerly Known as Philip Morris. (Allegedly guilty of hundreds of thousands of negligent homicides. Still totally soulless, though. Don’t’ sue us.)
And back to the case...
The original lawsuit alleged that Philip Morris used deceptive marketing practices to trick smokers into thinking “light” cigarettes were less harmful than regular ones. And it was filed in Madison County, which is in downstate Illinois, and which has become legendary/infamous for what has been described as its pro-plaintiff stance.
Yeah. “Pro-plaintiff stance.” Tort-reform advocates have said that Madison County attracted class-action lawyers from all over because it’s biased in favor of plaintiffs. Business leaders who’ve been whacked with huge-ass verdicts have described Madison County as a “judicial hell-hole.”
Chicagoist doesn’t know about all that with Madison County, but if were going to talk about judicial hell-holes, we have to talk about the Daley Center. Even gone to traffic court there? It’s a fucking nightmare. It’s like going to the bus station, just not as clean. And that’s just the lawyers. Thank you! Good night! Try the veal!
Again, back to the case:
Turns out the class action was brought under Illinois state law, which has its own standards for not lying in advertising. But federal law specifically permits tobacco companies to call cigarettes “light” and “low tar.” If federal law specifically lets you do it, then how can it be “deceptive” under state law?
(The answer’s not as easy as either side might think, and even though Chicagoist did actually go to law school, we’re not going to write a law review article here, so we’ll just go for the low-hanging fruit.)
In this year-end time of Christmakwanzahannumas, doesn’t it warm the cockles that poor, battered, pitiable Philip Morris a/k/a P-Mo gets to keep the $10 billion? It’s staving off disaster. Otherwise they have to hold a bake sale to buy an, um, er, ash tray. And those dopes that thought that when Tobacco said “light” thought it might be better for them? Ha! Suckers! They totally deserve an extra helping of cancer for Christmas dinner this year.
add to digg
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
It's more like a warming in the sub-cockular region.
Ah, smokin' stories. God and I love them, here's another one for you. Our good friends on the Cook County Board of Comissioners (or whatever the county goverment is called) wants to raise the cigarette tax a dollar a pack, that's right a whole dollar. Actually its only the craziest and the most corrupt (okay...alledgedly crazy and alledgedly corrupt, {my buddy did what with hospital contracts?? That's terrible, let's just see how that effects our super secret "opperating" accounts} pardon me I digress) the point again is that the County wants a buck more for every pack you buy. Now sooner or later the city and the county are going to price themselves right out of the market. With Indiana and Wisconsin so close and with thier sin stick prices still under a grand a pack, where's the city and county going to get the revenue to support their graft, uhm I mean "Secret opperating accounts"? Okay, okay Alleged graft. The secret opperating accounts are real.
From the Trib, it looks like one of the judges should maybe have thought about possibly recusing himself.
But then again, where would we be without our graft and corruption?
I have had it just pointed out to me that Stroger has thought long and hard and decided that they need $1.25 a pack not the $1 that I had originally mentioned. As far as where we would be without graft and corruption, well, I don't know, but it might be fun to find out.
I blame the damn smokers for this. :D
The major rebranding is in the past, when the parent company Phillip Morris changed its name to Altria. Altria is a greek word that means "we didn't give you lung cancer!"
I think the City of Chicago alone gets $3.50 for a pack of cigarettes. City, state , county governments ... they're all making more money than the tobacco companies. This will, of course, only worsen as the number of smokers continues to decrease, turning them into easy scapegoats and a taxable minority. I predict black market sales when cigarettes hit ten dollars a pack. I already know a couple of places in Chicago that sell cigarettes cheap, with no Cook or Chicago tax stickers on the bottom. This will just increase and greedy politicians will kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
To date, I have not seen any study that shows the societal health-related cost the average smoker leaves us with, versus the average non-smoker. Who's to say they don't save us money by dying quicker? Instead of that 3-year stint in the nursing hime, they may drop quicker from a heart attack. Where's the data? To date, no municipality specifically allots a significant amount of cigarette tax revenue for healthcare expenses and smoking cessation programs. In Georgia or North Carolina, they used tobacco settlement money to fund a tobacco farming study. It's an after-the-fact money-grab by lazy politicians who don't want to cut pork or raise taxes.
From the Chicago Tribune: Lawyers for Philip Morris USA contributed $16,800 to help elect a judge who cast a deciding vote in Thursday's Illinois Supreme Court decision favoring the tobacco giant.
The judge also received $1.2 million in campaign money from a group that filed an amicus brief supporting the cigarette-maker.
Yet no one suggested that Judge Lloyd Karmeier recuse himself from a closely watched case in which he voted with three others to strike down a $10.1 billion judgment, handing a huge victory to Philip Morris.
http://tinyurl.com/86evz
The cost of smoking for society is much higher than any tax revenues collected. So, when smokers finally die out or quit, the lesser tax revenues will be offset by the lessening health and pollution costs.
I notice this is the new argument by smokers - "what will you do without our tax dollars???"
We'll survive, don't worry about us. Worry about living long enough to have to GET TO the lost tax revenue problem instead.
good. if you had read the decision, you'd have known it was ridiculous.
the FDA approved of branding these cigarettes as light. and then smokers tried to sue. laughable.