The lawyer who took down Big Tobacco 20 years ago has another intimidating foe in his sights. His opponent this time — Big Pharma.
Moore calls pharmaceutical companies "pretty evil" and claims that they intentionally lied about the addictive properities of their drugs. Since 2014, he and his cohorts have filed multiple suits against manufacturers of prescription opioids. His home state of Mississippi was the first of 10 states to sue the drug companies.
Although scientific evidence has suggested a link between cigarettes and lung cancer for many years, tobacco companies continually fought lawsuits brought against them . Affected individuals and their families may be able to pursue compensation with the help of a product liability attorney.
A tobacco lawsuit may be an option for people who smoked cigarettes and other tobacco products and developed lung cancer or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Since the 1950s, doctors and other medical professionals have linked cigarettes and smoking to lung cancer and other diseases, such as heart disease.
Smoking has the potential to harm every organ of the body, affecting a person’s overall health. According to the CDC, other serious health risks linked to cigarettes and smoking include: 1 Risks associated with pregnancy, including preterm delivery, stillbirth, low birth weight, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS or crib death), ectopic pregnancy and orofacial clefts in infants 2 Problems affecting men’s sperm, which can lead to a reduction in fertility and an increase for birth defects and miscarriage 3 Greater risks affecting bone health 4 Tooth loss 5 Increased risk for cataracts and age-related macular degeneration, a condition characterized by damage to a small spot near the center of the retina 6 Risk of developing type 2 diabetes 7 Adverse effects such as inflammation and decreased immune function 8 Risk of rheumatoid arthritis
Smokers are at greater risk for diseases that affect the heart and blood vessels as well as the lungs. Cigarette smoking is the cause of most cases of lung cancer as well as lung diseases related to smoking, including COPD, emphysema and chronic bronchitis.
According to the New York Times, a Florida jury awards $23 billion dollars to the family of a smoker who died of lung cancer at the age of 36. After an appeal, punitive damages were reduced to just under $17 million dollars. 2008.
Cigarettes and other tobacco products are regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the Family Smoking and Prevention Control Act, a federal statute passed by the United States Congress in 2009.
In 2015, an estimated 15.1 percent of all adults in the U.S. (36.5 million people) smoke cigarettes. Each day, more than 3,200 under the age of 18 smoke their first cigarette. Each day, over 2,000 youth and young adults are estimated to become daily cigarette smokers.
Moore, who’s 65, served as Mississippi’s attorney general from 1988 to 2004. In 1994, using an untested and widely derided legal strategy, he became the first state AG to sue tobacco companies for lying about nicotine addiction and hold them accountable for sick smokers’ health-care costs.
Mike Moore made cigarette companies pay for the high cost of treating smokers. Here he comes again. Seven years ago, Mike Moore stepped from the 2 a.m. darkness into the light of a small home off Lakeland Drive in Jackson, Miss., to find his nephew close to death.
Officially, Moore’s name is listed only on cases filed by Mississippi, which was the first state to sue, and Ohio. But this belies his outsize role in convening the like-minded while envisioning the long-term, big-picture strategy.
The effort ended in 2007 when claimants, represented by lawyers including Hanly, the Manhattan attorney, settled for $75 million.
From it they built the modern Purdue, still a family-owned company. During those early years, Arthur Sackler pioneered now-common pharmaceutical marketing techniques—for example, sending “detailers,” or specialized salesmen, to pay calls directly on physicians.
The first litigants to sue tobacco manufacturers started filing in the 1950s. At this time, the role that tobacco played in the previously named medical conditions was not fully understood or accepted. Manufacturers were charged with making cigarettes incorrectly or failing to advertise the dangers.
How to Get Started with a Tobacco Lawsuit. A class does not currently legally exist for smokers. Plaintiffs are responsible for demonstrating that they were directly harmed by nicotine addiction and the smoking-related illnesses that result. Tobacco lawsuits are considered to be product liability claims.
Tobacco lawsuits have a unique place in the history of litigation. At one point in history, manufacturers of cigarettes, chew and other tobacco products were considered untouchable. Then, a tipping point was reached, and these once-invincible companies were forced to pay out millions of dollars to individuals, their families, and their estates.
Tobacco has a long history in the United States. As a new-world native plant and one of the country’s first cash crops, it was grown from colonial New England all the way down to Spanish Florida.
The combination of widespread use driven by ads and heavy use driven by other factors quickly revealed serious adverse health effects including. Throat Cancer. Cancers of the throat can include tobacco-caused laryngeal cancer, as well as pharynx (upper throat).
Inhaling cigarette smoke has been determined to be the No. 1 risk factor for developing lung cancer and is attributed with 87% of lung cancer deaths in men and 70% in women. The toxic carcinogens inhaled by smokers are believed to damage healthy cells leading them to become cancerous. Mouth cancer.
The following is a brief walkthrough of the lawsuit developments through the years. The first litigants to sue tobacco manufacturers started filing in the 1950s.
A member of the team of Texas tobacco lawyers, Williams, 46, also represented the family of a man killed in a Phillips Petroleum plant explosion and last year won a $117 million verdict.
Richard Scruggs. $29.5 million. University of Mississippi Law. Scruggs, 54, a former Navy pilot who works out of Pascagoula, Miss., made an early fortune with asbestos suits and pioneered tobacco litigation in the mid-1990s when he joined with Mississippi Attorney General Michael Moore.
University of Minnesota Law. On most days he's an intellectual-property lawyer who runs the 230-lawyer Minneapolis firm, Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi, with blue-chip clients like Honeywell and Unocal. But he's best known for winning the state's $6.1 billion tobacco settlement, with legal fees hitting $558 million.
His firm, Hagens Berman, represented 14 states, including Washington and Arizona, and will collect an average $10 million a year for 25 years.
One of the Big Five Texas tobacco lawyers, O'Quinn, 59, earned at least $40 million in the mid-Nineties with breast-implant litigation, forcing Dow Corning to file for bankruptcy.
The lawyers who represented the first states to settle with the tobacco industry over health care costs were awarded $8.2 billion in fees yesterday, the richest legal payday in the nation's history.
In Minnesota, where the state and a health insurer settled their cases this year for $6.5 billion, tobacco companies agreed to pay the plaintiffs' lawyers $427 million, or about 7.1 percent of the recovery. Those lawyers were highly regarded by many observers and the size of Minnesota's settlement increased the recoveries by Florida, ...
Mr. Murr's name was virtually unknown, but Dan Morales, the Texas attorney general, testified that his request was warranted because he had played a critical role in the litigation. Yesterday the panel unanimously awarded $1 million to Mr. Murr. Mr. Morales may also soon be asked more about it.
John Coffee, a law professor at Columbia University, said that his concern was not so much size of the fees but the fact that some state attorneys general had hired trial lawyers who had contributed to their campaigns.