L.A. County Files Lawsuit Against 6 Tobacco Firms

Los Angeles County became the first county in the nation to sue the tobacco industry when it filed a lawsuit Monday seeking huge damages to recover the costs of treating smoking-related illnesses.

The county joins 10 states and one city that have filed similar lawsuits.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who had pressed for the lawsuit, said the county should be compensated because it is forced to treat thousands of people who suffer from smoking-related illnesses every year.

“Our lawsuit has two objectives,” Yaroslavsky said. “One is to recover the millions of dollars a year that we believe county taxpayers have incurred treating people who have been made sick by tobacco. But we don’t just want to recover money. We also want to change the nature of the insidious advertising that the tobacco companies do. They target the most vulnerable population--teenagers.”

In a memo sent late Monday to the Board of Supervisors, County Counsel DeWitt Clinton said he intends to sign agreements next week with two law firms--Browne, Greene, Taylor, Wheeler & Panish of Santa Monica and Robinson, Phillips & Calcagnie of Laguna Niguel--to represent the county in the tobacco case.

Both firms will provide their services for a contingency fee of 25% of whatever the county recovers, meaning the suit would not cost the county anything if it loses.

Clinton indicated that the case was hurriedly filed Monday based on the recommendation of the two firms, which indicated they had “reliable information” that failure to do so “could prejudice the county’s position and substantially affect our opportunity for recovery.”

Representatives of the two firms could not be reached for further explanation of the timing.

The suit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleges that the six tobacco companies named as defendants have “controlled and manipulated the amount and . . . availability of nicotine in their tobacco products for the purpose and with the intent of creating and sustaining addiction.”

The suit, which also names several industry trade associations and vending machine companies, “seeks damages and restitution for monies expended for the health care of affected individuals, a permanent injunction to require the defendants to disclose their research on smoking, addiction and health.”

The suit also seeks funding for “a remedial public education campaign on the health consequences of smoking.”

In addition to asking for damages, the suit seeks to require “defendants to cease targeting minors in their advertising campaigns,” require “defendants to disclose the nicotine yields of their products” and require “defendants to fund smoking-cessation programs including the provision of nicotine replacement therapy for dependent smokers.”

The tobacco companies named in the suit include R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris, Brown & Williamson and its parent company British American Tobacco Industries, Liggett & Myers and the American Tobacco Company.

In June, San Francisco became the first local government in the United States to sue the tobacco industry. Less than a week later, Los Angeles County supervisors voted 4 to 1 to have a law firm file a similar lawsuit on the county’s behalf or join the San Francisco case.

Representatives of the tobacco industry have vowed to fight all such suits--as they have fought those filed by individual smokers. An R.J. Reynolds attorney has condemned the new wave of lawsuits as a “politically correct” attempt to, in effect, tax them for selling a legal product.

Yaroslavsky, a former two-pack-a-day smoker, said the Los Angeles case is significant because of the county’s size. It is now the third-largest plaintiff--after the states of Texas and Florida--seeking damages from the tobacco industry for the health impact associated with smoking. A number of other states are considering similar suits.

“There’s a lot at stake here because we’re the biggest county in the country and we’re even bigger than most states,” he said. “A lot of lives here are affected by smoking and a lot of cost is incurred.”

Board Chairman Mike Antonovich, who voted against filing the suit, argued that individuals choose to buy cigarettes, and noted that they are a legal product. He said the lawsuits against the tobacco companies were clogging the courts, and that law firms seeking damages were pursuing “a legal Lotto.”

But Health Services Director Mark Finucane told the supervisors at the time that the county, which has a huge immigrant population targeted by tobacco advertising, is bearing a great cost for treating smoking-related diseases such as cancer and respiratory illness.

Basing his estimates on a 1994 UC San Francisco study, he contended that smoking-related illness costs the county $1.2 billion a year. And the financially strapped public health system must absorb $372 million in costs, he said.