Louisiana Appeals Court Cuts Tobacco Case Verdict

An Associated Press article in the ledger.com reports that the Louisiana 4th Circuit Court of appeal cut a jury's $591 million verdict against tobacco companies by more than half. The court also held that the plaintiffs were not entitled to recover pretrial interest in the case, which totaled about $400 million, according to David Howard, a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. Mr. Howard also said that the tobacco companies will ask the Louisiana Supreme Court to overturn the entire verdict against them. The court's ruling also reduced to $279 million the amount of money available for smoking cessation programs and limited the availability of the programs to people who smoked prior to the passage of Louisiana's products liability law in 1988, rather than to anyone who started smoking prior to the filing of the lawsuit in 1996.

MKS