On behalf of six major public health organizations – Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, and National African American Tobacco Prevention Network – we have filed a Petition for Certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court in the long-running litigation brought by the Department of Justice over the cigarette companies’ violations of civil RICO. In 2005, our clients were granted intervention to advocate for the most effective remedies to redress the companies’ misconduct. Although in 2006 the trial court ruled that the companies engaged in a decades-long fraud concerning the health effects of smoking and the nature of nicotine, in May 2009 the D.C. Circuit concluded that the trial court has no authority under RICO to remedy this misconduct by requiring the companies to give up their unlawful profits, or fund programs to help addicted smokers quit smoking. We, and the government, have asked the Supreme Court to accept the case to reverse this decision, and rule that the trial court has broad authority to impose appropriate remedies to address the effects of the tobacco companies’ fraud. A copy of the Petition is here.
Created by the public interest law firm Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal in Washington, D.C.
