Tobacco Companies Seek to Bar Florida Lawsuit : Health: Dispute revolves around a law making it easier for the state to sue product manufacturers for injuries Medicaid recipients suffer.

Philip Morris Cos. and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. said Monday that they are seeking to bar a state agency from suing the tobacco industry under a law they claim is unconstitutional.

The companies said they filed a petition seeking the action with the Supreme Court of Florida.

The Medicaid Third-Party Liability Act, passed last April, makes it easier for the state to sue product manufacturers for injuries suffered by Medicaid recipients, a Philip Morris spokesman said.

Minnesota and Mississippi have already filed suits against the tobacco industry seeking to recoup taxpayers’ health-care costs, and Massachusetts has the legislation to do so as well.

*

The two companies said that, based on the state’s law, they expect the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration to sue them on Tuesday.

The tobacco companies also claim that the agency, set up as a unit of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, is acting illegally as an independent entity.

“The Florida Constitution requires that all executive functions be exercised either by the executive department or by an agency under the control and supervision of an executive department. The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration is neither,” said Steven Parrish, Philip Morris senior vice president and general counsel, in a statement.

Daniel Donahue, vice president and deputy general counsel of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, said the statute was passed as a “stealth” amendment by both houses of the Florida legislature on the last two days of its 1994 legislative session. Bills were recently introduced to repeal the law, he added.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco is a unit of RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp.

“The announced timing of the filing is suspect,” Donahue said. “It appears that the Health Care Agency is trying to bring its lawsuit before the statute is overturned by the courts and before the legislature, which is not yet in session, has a chance to consider the measure.”

*

Last June, Associated Industries of Florida and the National Assn. of Convenience Stores joined with Publix Supermarkets and Philip Morris to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the act, the tobacco companies said.

That suit, pending in the Circuit Court of the Second Judicial Circuit in Leon County, Fla., claims that the Act unconstitutionally changes the circumstances under which industries may be held liable in Medicaid litigation with the state.