Philip Morris USA and other cigar makers asked for an appeal concerning last year’s lawsuit over tobacco companies marketing of ‘light’ cigarettes. Altria Group Inc., owner of Philip Morris together with other companies made the appeal last Tuesday saying that a federal judge made a mistake of granting a class-action status to the said lawsuit.
There were 65 different brands of light cigarettes with hundreds of advertising campaigns for over 35 years covered by the class certification. Representatives of the tobacco companies said that the certification was overboard and the issues are so individualized for each brand or each smoker’s cases that the lawsuit cannot be and should not be grouped in a class.
On January 12, 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted the petition of the Altria Group Inc., the parent company of Phillip Morris. The company have said that its advertising is regulated by the Federal Trade Commission, and that made it a “person acting under” a federal officer. The court approves the transfer of the cigarette case, Watson v. Philip Morris, to federal courts.
The case set off when consumers alleged that the company had violated the state's deceptive-advertising law with claims about its "light" cigarettes. The case originally started in Arkansas followed by similar class-action lawsuits filed around the country.
Or so smokers and non-smokers alike believed that "low tars" or "lights" were as less hazardous alternative to full-flavor cigarettes.
Currently, there are three lights cases granted class certification, all in state courts and involving fewer numbers of smokers. Now came a September 2006 court ruling by Judge Jack Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, New York that there is "substantial evidence" that the manufacturers knew that light cigarettes were at least as dangerous as the regular variety. And people who smoked ‘lights’ can push their fraud claim as a class-action lawsuit.