United States v. Philip Morris USA, et al.

In 1999, the United States filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the major cigarette manufacturers and related trade organizations alleging that defendants, while acting as an enterprise, fraudulently misled American consumers for decades about the risks and dangers of cigarette smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke in violation of the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). In 2006, the court found that defendants violated civil provisions of RICO and that there was a reasonable likelihood that defendants would continue to violate RICO in the future. On appeal, the district court’s findings were upheld, in part, vacated, in part, and remanded, in part, to the district court. After the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear appeals from both sides in the case in June 2010, the district court began to implement the 2006 final order.

This order discusses (1) whether the Court should defer consideration of the issue of corrective action statements (as well as the issue of advertisement placement in retail stores); and (2) if so, how long such consideration should be deferred.  The Court ruled that there would be no deferral of decisionmaking regarding the corrective action statements.

United States v. Philip Morris USA Inc., et al., No. 99-2496, US District Court for the District of Columbia (2012).

  • United States
  • Jan 26, 2012
  • U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

Parties

Plaintiff United States

Defendant Philip Morris USA, Inc.

Legislation Cited

Related Documents

Type of Litigation

Tobacco Control Topics

Substantive Issues

Type of Tobacco Product

None

"In Landis, the Supreme Court required district courts, in “the exercise of judgment,” to “weigh competing interests and maintain an even balance” between the court’s interests in judicial economy and any possible hardship to the parties. 299 U.S. at 254-55. Defendants have failed to establish any serious hardship they would face by proceeding with consideration of the corrective action statements issue, and there is no question but that the public has a very substantial interest in having access to whatever corrective action statements may be adopted. As this Court found in its original decision, a corrective action statement remedy is “necessary to prevent and restrain [Defendants] from making fraudulent public statements on smoking and health matters in the future” and would “prevent Defendants from continuing to disseminate fraudulent public statements and marketing messages.” U.S. v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., 449 F. Supp. 2d 1, 926-27 (D.D.C. 2006) Thus, the public interest in obtaining such a remedy far outweighs any concern about judicial economy."
"It is perfectly clear from Defendants’ Response that the litigation challenging the Regulations promulgated by the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”), Required Warnings For Cigarette Packaging & Advertisements, 76 Fed. Reg. 36,628 (June 22, 2011), under the Tobacco Control Act, Pub. L. 111-31, 123 Stat. 1775 (2001), will not end (if ever) for an extremely long period of time. The case now pending before our Court of Appeals will, unquestionably, take at least one or more years to get resolved and an additional one to two years if the Supreme Court decides to grant certiorari which the loser before our Court of Appeals will undoubtedly request. In short, the period of any such deferral of decision-making would be both lengthy and indefinite."