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UNFAIR BUSINESS PRACTICES
Class Action Suit Filed Against
Philip Morris, Inc.
The firm represents Lori
Aspinall and Thomas
Geanacopoulos in a suit filed in
the Massachusetts Superior Court
for Suffolk County, No.
98-6002-H, against Philip Morris
Companies, Inc. and Philip
Morris, Inc. The suit is brought
under the Massachusetts Consumer
Protection Act, M.G.L. c.93A,
and the common law, and seeks to
recover damages from the
defendants on behalf of all
persons who purchased Marlboro
Lights cigarettes in the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
between 1971 and the present.
The case alleges that by using
words such as "Lights" and
"Lowered Tar and Nicotine" on
the packaging of Marlboro
Lights, defendants falsely
represented to purchasers that
the cigarettes contained and
delivered lower levels of tar
and nicotine to human smokers
than did regular cigarettes.
Case
Status: In October of 2001,
the Superior Court certified the
case as a class action.
That certification was affirmed
by the Massachusetts Supreme
Judicial Court in August of
2004.
The case is presently stayed
pending appeal of the Superior
Court's most recent decision on
August 9, 2006. In that
decision, the Superior Court
held that federal law does not
preempt a consumer's right to
bring an action
under Massachusetts law, and
that the Federal Trade
Commission had never
affirmatively permitted the use
of the terms "Lights" and
"Lowered Tar and Nicotine." The
parties are submitting briefs on
these issues to the
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial
Court in the summer of 2007,
and anticipate that the Court
will have oral argument in
the fall of 2007.
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