United States

The State of Washington appealed a lower court ruling that an advertisement placed by R.J. Reynolds in Rolling Stone magazine did not violate the provisions of the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) that ban the use of cartoons by tobacco companies to promote their products. The advertisement at issue was a gatefold advertisement in Rolling Stone magazine placed by R.J. Reynolds to promote its Camel Farm campaign. The lower court ruled that the portion of the advertisement placed by Reynolds did not contain cartoons and that Reynolds was not responsible for the cartoon content in adjacent editorial content.

On appeal, the court held the images in the Camel Farm advertisement violated the plain language of the MSA, which contains a broadly-worded definition of “cartoon.” The appellate court, however, agreed with the trial court that Reynolds was not responsible for prevent cartoon content in the adjacent editorial content. The court then remanded the case to the trial court the address the issue of remedies.