Smokers’ Suits Seek Share of States’ Tobacco Settlement

Smokers in eight states are filing lawsuits this week with the aim of securing some of the $206-billion settlement that states reached with Philip Morris Cos. and other tobacco companies, lawyers said.

The coordinated suits, similar to cases pending in California and other states, will ask for any money beyond that needed to replace Medicaid funds spent treating sick smokers.

The smokers, who are asking for class-action status, could be seeking billions of dollars, said Atlanta lawyer Stephen Chance, who is involved in the suits.

Smokers claim the states--which sued the tobacco companies to recover the money they spent over the years on smoking-related health-care costs--are violating federal law by failing to turn over a portion of the damages to individual smokers, lawyers said.

“These are the people who have suffered these illnesses,” Chance said. “The states are receiving more than their fair share, and they are not distributing [the money].”

Julie Brill, an assistant attorney general in Vermont, said her office is reviewing the suit and will respond in court.

“The suits appear to make many assumptions about why the money was recovered under the master settlement agreement--none of which are true,” Brill said.

The states in the settlement have not planned to give any of their payments to the individual smokers, lawyers said.

“The states are trying to take that money and put it in their own pockets,” said Edward McDaid, a Philadelphia attorney filing the Pennsylvania suit.

Richard Daynard, a Northeastern University law professor who heads an anti-smoking group, said the smokers’ chances in court aren’t good.

Daynard said a court will likely throw out the case based on the 11th Amendment, which prohibits lawsuits in federal court seeking damages from a state.

In November 1998, the tobacco industry settled lawsuits brought by 46 states for $206 billion. The companies settled separately with the remaining states for an additional $40 billion.

States began receiving their shares of the settlement in December.

The suits were to be filed beginning Wednesday in federal courts in Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont and West Virginia, though the Pennsylvania suit will not be filed until today because of inclement weather, McDaid said.

A similar suit was filed in July in Los Angeles Superior Court by lawyers for Louis Bolduc and five other named plaintiffs, who said they are suing on behalf of all other Medi-Cal recipients who have suffered smoking-related ailments. Lawyers for state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer are trying to have the case thrown out.

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Bloomberg News contributed to this report.