Letter from Executive Director

Preparations are continuing for our one-day conference on October 27th, "Waiting to Exhale: The Future of Tobacco Litigation."  If you have not yet registered, you can do so here.  As I discussed in this space last month, we have a first-rate lineup of speakers and it promises to be an extremely interesting day.  You can download the conference brochure here.

Recent news makes this conference even more timely. On August 17th, U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler issued her opinion in U.S. v. Philip Morris, finding that the tobacco company defendants had engaged in a decades-long racketeering conspiracy.  This decision is discussed in more detail in one of the feature articles in this newsletter.

Judge Kessler's incredibly detailed 1,700-page decision and the millions of industry documents uncovered in the trial (which, according to Judge Kessler's order, must now be posted on the Internet) provide a tremendous amount of material that can be used in future litigation.  Already, attorneys are questioning whether the principle of "collateral estoppel" may apply in future cases, baring the tobacco company defendants from re-litigating the issues decided against them in U.S. v. Philip Morris.  According to the plaintiffs' attorney in one pending case, "Judge Kessler's opinion provides exhaustive detail as to the tobacco industry's fraud, and we are confident that defendants will be estopped from re-litigating findings of fact and conclusions of law reached therein."  If plaintiffs' attorneys do not need to re-litigate the entire history of tobacco industry fraud in each individual case, future cases may be able to progress much faster.

Our conference will also discuss secondhand smoke litigation, including litigation related to drifting secondhand smoke in multi-unit housing.  There have been recent developments in this area as well.  As discussed in one of the other feature articles, a court in New York recently held that tenants who broke their lease because of drifting secondhand smoke from a neighboring unit did not need to compensate the landlord in any way.  Notably, the neighbors who were the source of the problem were not living in a unit controlled by the landlord.  Nonetheless, the court found that once the landlord was notified of the problem with secondhand smoke, he had a duty to try to fix the problem. The court wrote, "While the landlord contends that he had no control over the neighbors..he failed to offer any evidence that he took any action to eliminate or alleviate the hazardous condition."

Tobacco-related litigation is a fascinating and very fast-moving area of law.  There are new cases coming out every week, and the legal landscape is shifting very quickly.  Although tobacco analysts continue to predict a rosy future for tobacco stocks, other legal analysts see rough waters ahead for the tobacco industry.  I hope you are able to join us for a discussion of these issues and others on October 27th.  Again, registration is available online here.