[Editor's Note: The State of Texas has filed this case against The American Tobacco Company, as well as other tobacco companies, alleging that the tobacco industry placed profits above the well-being of the American people, and that they deliberately suppressed evidence linking nicotine and various illnesses. The suit also alleges that the tobacco industry used advertising targeted at children to build their customer base, obscuring the addictive, unhealty elements of smoking. Texas Attorney General Dan Morales hired six high-profile plaintiffs' lawyers for the case, all of whom are working for a 15% contingency fee.]
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
TEXARKANA DIVISION
THE STATE OF TEXAS, Plaintiff
VS.
THE AMERICAN TOBACCO COMPANY;
R.J. REYNOLDS TOBACCO
COMPANY; BROWN & WILLIAMSON
TOBACCO CORPORATION; B.A.T
INDUSTRIES, P.L.C; PHILIP
MORRIS, INC.; LIGGETT GROUP,
INC.; LORILLARD TOBACCO
COMPANY, INC.; UNITED STATES
TOBACCO COMPANY; HILL &
KNOWLTON, INC.; THE COUNCIL
FOR TOBACCO RESEARCH-USA,
INC. (Successor to Tobacco
Institute Research Committee);
and THE TOBACCO INSTITUTE, INC., Defendants
ORIGINAL COMPLAINT
The State of Texas, by Dan Morales, Attorney General of the State of Texas ("The State"), complains against the Defendants as follows:
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
The health, welfare and property of Texas citizens have been damaged by the tobacco industry's unlawful conduct and injurious and unreasonably dangerous products. The tobacco companies have placed corporate profits above any concern for the health and property of the consumers of their products. The toll of human misery from the mass addiction, disease and death caused by their products has not been sufficient to deter the tobacco companies from their unified campaign of disinformation and denials regarding the dangerousness of their products. The tobacco companies have unlawfully shifted the financial responsibility for their tortious and illegal conduct and for their unreasonably dangerous products, to the business of state and federal governments that provide for the general welfare of their citizens.
This lawsuit seeks to have the tobacco companies' liability to the State judicially recognized and to restore to the State's treasury those funds spent for tobacco- attributable costs to the Medicaid Program, the State Employee Retirement System, the State Employee Group Insurance Program, charity care, tobacco cessation programs and related wellness and health care programs and other damages to be determined by a jury.
This lawsuit also seeks to protect the future health of our children. Marketing strategies of the tobacco companies target our children to induce them to start using tobacco products. Dr. David Kessler, Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, classifies the nicotine addiction of teenagers as a pediatric disease.
According to a 1994 U.S. Surgeon General's Report, more than three million American children currently smoke cigarettes and an additional one million adolescent males use smokeless tobacco. Everyday, another 3,000 children become regular smokers. Eighty-two percent of adults who have ever smoked, had their first cigarette before age 18, and more than half of them had already become regular smokers by that age. Reports published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that anyone who does not begin smoking in childhood is unlikely to begin. For those 3,000 children who do become current regular users of tobacco products, projections of current trends indicate 1,000 will die prematurely as a result of their tobacco use.
The tobacco industry has been successful in planning, implementing and executing the largest and most destructive campaign of corporate misinformation in U.S. business history. The Executive Officers and Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association (AMA) have stated that recently disclosed internal tobacco industry documents "...show us how this industry has managed to spread confusion by suppressing, manipulating, and distorting the scientific record.... The evidence is unequivocal - the U.S. public has been duped by the tobacco industry. No right- thinking individual can ignore the evidence."
It is the duty and obligation of the Attorney General as the chief law enforcement officer for the State of Texas, to bring this suit to seek reimbursement to the public, those funds expended because of the tobacco companies' illegal conduct and unreasonably dangerous products, to halt tobacco marketing aimed at children, to restrain the tobacco companies' unlawful conduct and to dispel any illusion of a scientific controversy regarding tobacco and health.
NATURE OF THE CASE
1. This action arises out of the State's participation in the Medicaid program created by Title XIX of the Social Security Act. The Medicaid program is a cooperative endeavor in which the Federal Government provides financial assistance to participating States to aid them in furnishing health care to needy persons. For every dollar spent on Medicaid assistance by the State, the Federal Government provides approximately two dollars in matching funds. The State of Texas participation in this federal program is one of many programs conducted by the State to promote the general welfare of its citizens and meet its specific objective to insure that adequate and high quality health care is available to its citizens who cannot afford it.
2. The State is required to take all reasonable measures to ascertain the legal liability of third parties to pay for care and services available under the Medicaid Act, and to seek reimbursement to the public fund to the extent of such legal liability. The State has discovered that the Defendants have been engaged in a protracted and willful course of corporate misconduct and misrepresentation in violating numerous federal and state laws, and in the actionable breach of the duties owed to the State and its citizens.
3. The Defendants are cigarette and tobacco product manufacturers and/or their trade associations that control virtually the entire cigarette industry in Texas and the Nation. For decades, the State has incurred significant expenses associated with the provision of necessary health care and other such necessary assistance under various State programs to citizens who suffer, or who have suffered, from tobacco-related injuries, diseases or sickness.
4. This action is based on the deliberate and willful misconduct by Defendants toward the Nation, the State and its citizens. Defendants' misconduct and offenses came to light as the result of congressional hearings in 1994 and subsequent investigation by private and public entities. The Defendants' misconduct, actions and statements are violations of the following areas of law:
A. Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act: The Defendants' knowing and concerted actions from the 1950s to date, constitute a pattern of public fraud, via mail and wire fraud on a nationwide scale, with callous disregard to the health and lives of millions of people. Attorney Generals' lawsuits brought by Mississippi, Minnesota, West Virginia, Florida, Massachusetts, and Louisiana and a Prosecution Memorandum by Massachusetts Congressman Martin Meehan (Exhibit 1) uniformly characterize the Defendants' acts as public fraud. The duration, scope and devastating impact on the health and lives of Americans from the pattern of fraudulent conduct of Defendants, violates federal corrupt organization statutes. The intended victims of the public fraud are the industry's own customers, perspective customers, and for purposes of this action, the public fund of the State of Texas. The public fraud was perpetrated by a pattern of conduct violative of mail fraud, 18 U.S.C. 1341, and wire fraud statutes, 18 U.S.C. 1343.
B. Federal and State Antitrust Acts: Beginning at least as early as the 1950s, and continuing to the present, Defendants entered into a combination and conspiracy to control the sale and maintain the market for cigarettes and other tobacco products in the United States and Texas, and to restrain and suppress competition in that market in order to sell nicotine-laden cigarettes and nicotine delivery devices to consumers. The Defendants' conspiracy had the purpose and effect of stabilizing and otherwise fixing the price of cigarettes and other tobacco products, and standardizing the tobacco products manufactured and sold in the U.S. by retarding the research, development, production, and sale of alternative products.
The conspiracy to control and maintain the market was accomplished by anti-competitive patent accumulation practices and other conduct causing restraint and suppression of research on the harmful effects of smoking; restraining and suppressing alternative, higher quality and safer competitive cigarette and other tobacco products. In furtherance of their conspiracy, Defendants also engaged in a comprehensive campaign of misrepresentation, obfuscation, and public fraud in their actions and statements before the U.S. Congress, state legislatures, federal and state officials and regulators, and the public, which included deceptive advertisements, promotions, marketing and public relations schemes. Defendants' conspiracy was motivated by their desire to maintain the status quo in the tobacco industry -- to perpetuate the unregulated and unfettered sale of nicotine in their products -- thereby creating and maintaining a stabilized market demand through nicotine dependency in consumers.
C. Federal and State common law: The recovery of damages under the common law doctrines of fraud, negligent misrepresentation, restitution-unjust enrichment, equitable estoppel, equitable indemnity, negligence, and public nuisance are applicable to Defendants' manufacture, promotion and sale of tobacco products to Texas citizens/consumers while knowing, but denying and concealing, that their tobacco products caused injury and sickness, including cancer, emphysema, heart disease and other illnesses causing disability and death. Their tobacco products contain the highly addictive drug nicotine. The Defendants have concealed from the public the fact that they have controlled and manipulated the amount of nicotine and/or its bioavailability in their tobacco products for the purpose and with the intent of creating and sustaining addictions to these products.
D. Product Liability Law: The Defendant manufacturers and/or their trade organizations, at all pertinent times, manufactured, tested, designed, promoted, marketed, packaged, sold, distributed, and/or placed into the stream of commerce in and into the State, numerous brands of defective, unreasonably dangerous and hazardous cigarettes, or other tobacco products, or, in the course of business, materially participated with, conspired with and/or otherwise, abetted and assisted others in so doing, thereby causing damage for which Defendants are responsible under product liability doctrines of strict liability and breach of express and implied warranty.
JURISDICTION AND VENUE
5. This Court has jurisdiction over this action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1331, 1367; 15 U.S.C. 15 and 18 U.S.C. 1964.
6. Venue is proper in this District pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1391. Defendants advertised in this District, received substantial compensation and profits from the sales of tobacco products in this District, and made material misrepresentations and breached warranties in this District. Further, significant health care services were provided in this District to qualified citizens under the Medicaid Act whose necessary health care services and the expense therefore were attributable to smoking-related disease and illness.
PARTIES
PLAINTIFF
7. Dan Morales, Attorney General for the State of Texas, is authorized to bring this action on behalf of the State by the Texas Constitution, Art. 4 22; the Texas Government Code, Section 402.021, et seq.; the Texas Free Enterprise and Antitrust Act of 1983, Business and Commerce Code, Chapter 15; 42 U.S.C. 1396, et seq., also known as the Social Security Act, Chapter 7, subchapter XIX, Grants to States for Medical Assistance Programs; the Texas Medical Assistance Act, Texas Human Resources Code 32.001, et seq.; the Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. 15; and, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C. 1964.
DEFENDANTS
8. The American Tobacco Company is a Delaware corporation whose principal place of business is located at 6 Stamford Forum, Stamford, Connecticut 06904, and upon whom process may be served. The American Tobacco Company (ATC) manufactured, advertised and sold Lucky Strike, Pall Mall, Tareyton, Malibu, American, Montclair, Newport, Misty, Barkeley, Iceberg, Silk Cut, Silva Thins, Sobrania, Bull Durham and Carolton cigarettes throughout the United States. On information and belief, the American Tobacco Company was purchased by Brown & Williamson who has succeeded to the liabilities of ATC by operation of law or as a matter of fact.
9. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company is a corporation organized and existing under and by virtue of the laws of the State of New Jersey, with an agent for service in the State of Texas, to-wit: Prentice-Hall Corporation System, 400 North St. Paul Street, Dallas, Texas 75201. R. J. Reynolds is a wholly-owned subsidiary of RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company manufactures, advertises and sells Camel, Vantage, Now, Doral, Winston, Sterling Magna, More, Century, Bright Rite and Salem cigarettes throughout the United States.
10. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation is a corporation organized and existing under and by virtue of the laws of the State of Delaware, with an agent for service in the State of Texas, to-wit: C.T. Corporation Systems, 350 North St. Paul Street, Dallas, Texas 75201. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation is a subsidiary division of Batus, Inc. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation manufactures, advertises and sells Kool, Barclay, Belair, Capri, Raleigh, Richland, Laredo, Eli Cutter and Viceroy cigarettes throughout the United States.
11. B.A.T. Industries P.L.C. ("B.A.T. Industries") is a British corporation with its principal place of business at Windsor House, 50 Victoria St., London. Through a succession of intermediary corporations and holding companies, B.A.T. Industries is the sole shareholder of Brown & Williamson. Through Brown & Williamson, B.A.T. Industries has placed cigarettes into the stream of commerce with the expectation that substantial sales of cigarettes would be made in the United States and in Texas. B.A.T. Industries has also conducted, or through its agents, subsidiaries, associated companies, and/or co-conspirators, conducted significant research for Brown & Williamson on the topics of smoking, disease and addiction. On information and belief, Brown & Williamson also sent to England, research conducted in the United States on the topics of smoking, disease and addiction, in order to remove sensitive and inculpatory documents from United States jurisdiction, and such documents were subject to B.A.T. Industries' control. B.A.T. Industries is a participant in the conspiracy described herein and has caused harm in Texas.
12. Philip Morris, Inc. (Philip Morris U.S.A.), a subsidiary of Philip Morris Companies, Inc., is a corporation organized and existing under and by virtue of the laws of the State of Virginia, with an agent for service in the State of Texas, to-wit: C.T. Corporation Systems, 350 North St. Paul Street, Dallas, Texas 75201. Philip Morris, Inc. manufactures, advertises and sells Philip Morris, Merit, Cambridge, Marlboro, Benson & Hedges, Virginia Slims, Alpine, Dunhill, English Ovals, Galaxy, Players, Saratoga and Parliament cigarettes throughout the United States.
13. Liggett Group, Inc., a subsidiary of the Brooke Group, Ltd. and operating successor of Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co.(Liggett & Myers), is a corporation organized and existing under and by virtue of the laws of the State of Delaware, with an agent for service in the State of Texas, to-wit: Corporations Service Company, 100 Congress, Suite 1100, Austin, Texas 78701. Liggett Group, Inc. manufactures, advertises and sells Chesterfield, Decade, L&M, Pyramid, Dorado, Eve, Stride, Generic and Lark cigarettes throughout the United States.
14. Lorillard Tobacco Company, Inc. is a corporation organized and existing under and by virtue of the laws of the State of Delaware, with an agent for service in the State of Texas, to-wit: Prentice-Hall Corporation System, 400 North St. Paul Street, Dallas, Texas 75201. Lorillard Tobacco Company, Inc. is a subsidiary of Loews Corporation. Lorillard Tobacco Company, Inc. manufactures, advertises and sells Old Gold, Kent, Triumph, Satin, Max, Spring, Newport and True throughout the United States.
15. United States Tobacco Company is a Delaware corporation whose principal place of business is located at 100 West Putnam Avenue, Greenwich, Connecticut, and upon whom process may be served. United States Tobacco Company manufactures, advertises and sells Sano cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products throughout the United States.
16. Hill & Knowlton, Inc. is a corporation organized and existing under and by virtue of the laws of the State of New Jersey, with an agent for service in the State of Texas, to-wit: United Corporation Services, Inc., 400 E. Anderson Lane, Austin, Texas 78752. Defendant, Hill & Knowlton, Inc. is an international public relations firm. Defendant Hill & Knowlton, Inc. played an active and knowing role in the conspiracy complained of, aiding the circulation and/or publication of many false statements of the tobacco industry attributable to the Tobacco Institute Research Committee (TIRC) and the Council for Tobacco Research. Hill & Knowlton, Inc. has been the primary advertising agency responsible for dissemination of the false and misleading information in question in its capacity as the advertising and public relations agency for the Tobacco Institute, Inc. and the Tobacco Companies.
17. The Council for Tobacco Research -- U.S.A., Inc. (successor in interest to the Tobacco Institute Research Committee) is a non-profit corporation organized under the laws of the State of New York with its principal place of business located at 900 3rd Avenue, New York, New York 10022, and upon whom process may be served.
18. The Tobacco Institute, Inc. is a non-profit corporation organized under the laws of the State of New York whose agent for service of process in New York is C.T. Corporation, 1633 Broadway, New York, New York 10019, with its principal place of business located at 1876 "I" Street N.W., Suite 800, Washington, D.C. 20006.
19. The American Tobacco Company, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company; B.A.T. Industries, P.L.C.; Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation; Philip Morris, Inc.(Philip Morris U.S.A.); Liggett Group, Inc.; Lorillard Tobacco Company, Inc.; and United States Tobacco Company are referred to hereinafter as the "Tobacco Companies."
20. The Council for Tobacco Research-U.S.A., Inc., (successor to the Tobacco Institute Research Committee) and the Tobacco Institute, Inc., collectively, are referred to hereinafter as the "Tobacco Trade Associations."
21. At all pertinent times, Defendants acted through their duly authorized agents, servants, and employees who were then acting in the course and scope of their employment, and in furtherance of the business of said Defendants. At all pertinent times, the Tobacco Trade Associations and Hill & Knowlton, Inc. were the agents, servants, and/or employees of the Tobacco Companies and acted within the scope of said agency, servitude and/or employment.
22. The Defendants listed above, and/or their predecessors and successors in interest, did business in the State of Texas; made contracts to be performed in whole or in part in Texas; and/or manufactured, tested, sold, offered for sale, supplied or placed in the stream of commerce, or, in the course of business, materially participated with others in so doing, tobacco products which the Defendants knew to be defective, unreasonably dangerous and hazardous, and which the Defendants knew would be substantially certain to cause injury to the State, and to persons within the State, thereby negligently and intentionally causing injury to persons within Texas and to the State, and as described herein, committed and continue to commit tortious and other unlawful acts in the State of Texas.
23. The Defendants, and/or their predecessors and successors in interest, performed such acts as were intended to, and did, result in the sale and distribution of tobacco products in the State of Texas.
24. The term "addictive" used in this complaint is synonymous and interchangeable with the term "dependence - producing"; both terms refer to the persistent and repetitive intake of psychoactive substances despite evidence of harm and a desire to quit. Some scientific organizations have replaced the term "addictive" with "dependence - producing" to shift the focus to dependent patterns of behavior and away from the moral and social issues associated with addiction. Both terms are equally relevant for purposes of understanding the drug effects of nicotine.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND: EVENTS LEADING TO DECEMBER 15, 1953 CONSPIRACY MEETING
25. Although tobacco in various forms has been consumed by Americans for many centuries, it was not until the 19th century that an easily inhalable tobacco product, the cigarette, became widely popular. With the introduction of the Bonsack mechanized cigarette-rolling machine in 1884 by W. Duke and Sons, cigarettes were mass-produced and distributed and sold nationwide.
26. In 1881, Duke's factory produced 9.8 million cigarettes, 1-1/2 percent of the total market. But five years later, W. Duke and Sons were able to manufacture 744 million cigarettes, more than the national total in 1883. By 1890, Duke's competitors, who themselves had now become mechanized, joined forces with him to establish the American Tobacco Company. By the turn of the century, 9 out of every 10 cigarettes carried the Duke label. Shortly after the American Tobacco Company was formed, the State of North Carolina started an antitrust suit against it -- and other such litigation followed. In May 1911, the American Tobacco Company was dissolved by order of the Supreme Court, to be succeeded by four large firms -- Liggett and Myers, Reynolds, Lorillard, and American -- plus many smaller ones.
27. The increased availability and consumption of cigarettes at the end of the 19th century corresponded with an increased incidence of lung disease and cancer.
28. The modern period of investigation into the question of smoking and health began about 1900 when an increase in what was by then recognized as cancer of the lungs was noted by vital statisticians.
29. Cigarette smoking increased dramatically in the first half of the 20th century. With the increase of cigarette smoking came an increase in lung cancer. Dr. Alton Ochsner, a New Orleans surgeon and regional medical director of the American Cancer Society, told an audience at Duke University on October 23, 1945, that "there is a distinct parallelism between the incidence of cancer of the lung and the sale of cigarettes...the increase is due to the increased incidence of smoking and that smoking is a factor because of the chronic irritation it produces."
30. In 1946, Tobacco Company chemists themselves reported concern for the health of smokers. A 1946 letter from a Lorillard chemist to its manufacturing committee states that "Certain scientists and medical authorities have claimed for many years that the use of tobacco contributes to cancer development in susceptible people. Just enough evidence has been presented to justify the possibility of such a presumption."
31. Despite the evidence showing their cigarettes caused lung disease and cancer, the Tobacco Companies failed to conduct any investigation of the smoking and health relationship for the safety of their customers. Instead, the Tobacco Companies chose sales over public health and safety. In the 1930s through the 1950s, in response to what industry spokesmen referred to as "the health scare", the Tobacco Companies made express claims and warranties as to the healthiness of their products with reckless disregard to the falsity of their claims and the consequential adverse impact on consumers. Examples of these health warranties include the following: Old Gold - "Not a cough in a Carload"; Camel - "Not a single case of throat irritation due to smoking Camels"; Philip Morris - "The Throat-tested cigarette."
32. In 1942, Brown and Williamson claimed that Kools would keep the head clear and/or give extra protection against colds.
33. In 1952, Liggett & Myers conducted a test for advertising purposes to demonstrate the absence of harmful effects of smoking Chesterfields on the nose, throat, and affected organs. The test was conducted by Arthur D. Little, Inc. and was designed so as to have no real scientific value. Nonetheless, its conclusion that smoking Chesterfields had no harmful effect on the organs in question was widely publicized and the purported results used to assure the general public that Chesterfields were harmless.
34. During the 1950s, Liggett & Myers sponsored the nationally popular Arthur Godfrey radio and television show wherein health claims were made based on the alleged scientific studies assuring "smoking Chesterfields would have no adverse effects on the throat, sinuses or affected organs." Arthur Godfrey subsequently died from lung cancer caused by smoking cigarettes.
35. Earlier consumer-oriented ads from the 1930s and 1940s often carried wide-ranging medical claims that placed cigarette-touting physicians in the company of endorsers such as Santa Claus ("Luckies are easy on my throat"), movie stars, sports heroes, and steady-nerved circus stars. Similar ads even appeared in medical journals, where ads were directed solely at physicians. One, for example, touted the Camel cigarettes booth at the American Medical Association's 1942 Annual Meeting.
36. In the New York State Journal of Medicine, Chesterfield ads began running in 1933. They often carried claims such as, "Just as pure as the water you drink...and practically untouched by human hands."
37. The Tobacco Companies sponsored cigarette ads in the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association ("JAMA"), and The Lancet from the 1930s through the 1950s.
38. For 15 years, Philip Morris used various claims, including one it ran in JAMA in 1949: "Why many leading nose and throat specialists suggest, 'Change to Philip Morris'..." In 1935, Philip Morris ran an ad in the New York State Medical Journal touting studies that purportedly showed Philip Morris cigarettes were less irritating. An ad by the company in a 1943 issue of the National Medical Journal read: "'Don't smoke' is advice hard for patients to swallow. May we suggest instead, 'Smoke Philip Morris?' Tests showed three out of every four cases of smokers' cough cleared on changing to Philip Morris. Why not observe the results for yourself?"
39. Other companies added different angles for physicians. Camel cigarettes paid tribute to medical pioneers and concluded: "Experience is the best teacher....experience is the best teacher in cigarettes, too." Old Gold reacted to early negative medical studies with the slogan: "If pleasure's your aim, not medical claims..." Some companies hired attractive women to deliver cigarette samples to physicians and the patients in their waiting rooms.
40. The appearance of landmark studies such as the 1952 JAMA article on smoking and bronchial carcinoma, by Alton Ochsner, M.D., and others prompted JAMA's decision to ban cigarette ads from their journal.
41. The health-claim advertising campaigns by Defendants were patently false, misleading, deceptive and/or fraudulent. These campaigns were disseminated nationally in popular magazines, press, radio and television and were calculated to induce non-smokers to commence smoking and to induce smokers to continue in their addiction to their harm and injury and to the damage of the State.
42. During the 1950s the Tobacco Companies employed yet another method of deception in manufacturing and advertising to boost sales to counter the "health scare" -- "The Filter Derby" and "Tar Wars". The Tobacco Companies manufactured filtered cigarettes that were advertised with explicit and/or implicit warranties of tar/nicotine content and health claims. The Tobacco Companies' health claims and claims as to the effectiveness of the filters in removing tar and nicotine were knowingly deceptive when made, and/or were made with reckless disregard for the health risks to the cigarette smokers.
43. In addition to conducting an industry-wide campaign of false health claim advertising during the 1930s and 1940s, certain Tobacco Companies engaged in antitrust violations that set the pattern for current violations.
44. American Tobacco Company, Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company, and R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company are convicted violators of the Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C.A. 1 and 2. In the 1930s and 1940s, ATC, Liggett & Myers and R. J. Reynolds, at that time the so-called "Big Three," had combined to restrain competition in order to control prices of leaf tobacco. The methods employed were 1) limitations and restrictions on the prices their buyers were permitted to pay for tobacco; 2) maintenance of price ceiling agreements among them; 3) stabilization and fixing of prices through percentage buying; 4) formulation of certain grades of tobacco so as to construct barriers to competition; and, 5) combining to manipulate and raise the price of lower-grade tobaccos in order to eliminate competition from manufacturers of low- priced cigarettes.
45. By the 1950s, the Defendants had known for decades of the lethal dangers of smoking their cigarettes and consuming their smokeless tobacco products.
46. The course of history for the tobacco industry was forever changed in 1953. A 1953 report by Dr. Ernst L. Wynder disclosed to the scientific community and to the Tobacco Companies, a definitive link between smoking and cancer. In these tests, researchers painted condensed cigarette smoke onto the backs of mice. As a result, the mice grew cancerous tumors. While previous statistical and epidemiologic studies indicated a relationship between smoking and cancer, Dr. Wynder's study demonstrated a direct biological link between smoking and cancer. (Although Defendants have sought to discredit the Wynder findings, recently disclosed documents include a 1962 letter from Lorillard to Dr. Wynder, regarding his work establishing smoking to be a carcinogen and the principal cause of lung cancer, and stating that Lorillard "considered [Dr. Wynder's] work above reproach, as usual.")
THE MODERN CONSPIRACY ERA:
DECEMBER 15, 1953 TO PRESENT
47. In response to the publication of Dr. Wynder's study in 1953, the presidents of the leading tobacco manufacturers, including American Tobacco Co., R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris, U.S. Tobacco Co., Lorillard, and Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation, conspired with the public relations firm of Hill and Knowlton, Inc. to form a monopolistic trust to deal with the "health scare" presented by smoking. Acting in concert, at an industry strategy meeting on December 15, 1953 at the Plaza Hotel in New York, the participants agreed to form a committee to orchestrate a public relations campaign to protect their cigarette market from the perceived threat posed by the adverse medical reports. This committee was designed to promote an offensive, pro-cigarettes stance to counter reports of health dangers caused by cigarettes. As a result of these efforts, the Tobacco Institute Research Committee (TIRC), an entity later known as the Council for Tobacco Research (CTR), was established.
48. Hill & Knowlton notes from the December 15, 1953 meeting show that ATC executive Paul Hahn served as chairman. Defendants knowingly conspired to conceal illegal antitrust activity by avoiding the incorporation of a formal association; instead, they would work in informal committees within a front organization to be established and designated the Tobacco Institute Research Committee (later the CTR). The purpose of their meeting and conspiracy was to protect the cigarette market structure along the same lines and utilizing the same methods employed in their last such meeting in 1939, which resulted in the conviction of the "Big Three" under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
49. Although Liggett & Myers did not become a signatory member of the CTR until 1965, Liggett & Myers helped organize, support, aid and abet the conspiracy and illegal acts of the TIRC/CTR from the latter's inception through the present.
50. The TIRC immediately ran a full-page promotion in more than 400 newspapers aimed at an estimated 43 million Americans. That piece was entitled "A Frank Statement To Cigarette Smokers" and contained the following language: RECENT REPORTS on experiments with mice have given wide publicity to a theory that cigarette smoking is in some way linked to lung cancer in human beings.
Although conducted by doctors of
professional standing, these
experiments are not regarded as
conclusive in the field of cancer
research. However, we do not
believe that any serious medical
research, even though its results
are inconclusive, should be
disregarded or lightly dismissed.
At the same time, we feel it is in
the public interest to call
attention to the fact that eminent
doctors and research scientists have
publicly questioned the claimed
significance of these experiments.
Distinguished authorities point out:
1. That medical research of recent
years indicates many possible causes
of lung cancer.
2. That there is no agreement
among the authorities regarding what
the cause is.
3. That there is no proof that
cigarette smoking is one of the
causes.
4. That statistics purporting to
link cigarette smoking with the
disease could apply with equal force
to any one of many aspects of modern
life. Indeed the validity of the
statistics themselves is questioned
by numerous scientists.
We accept an interest in people's
health as a basic responsibility,
paramount to every other
consideration in our business.
We believe the products we make are
not injurious to health.
We always have and always will
cooperate closely with those whose
task it is to safeguard the public
health.
For more than 300 years tobacco has
given solace, relaxation, and
enjoyment to mankind. At one time
or another during those years,
critics have held it responsible for
practically every disease of the
human body. One by one these
charges have been abandoned for lack
of evidence.
Regardless of the record of the
past, the fact that cigarette
smoking today should even be
suspected as a cause of serious
disease is a matter of deep concern
to us.
Many people have asked us what we
are doing to meet the public's
concern aroused by the recent
reports. Here is the answer:
1. We are pledging aid and
assistance to the research effort
into all phases of tobacco use and
health. This joint financial aid
will of course be in addition to
what is already being contributed by
individual companies.
2. For this purpose we are
establishing a joint group
consisting initially of the
undersigned. This group will be
known as the TOBACCO INDUSTRY
RESEARCH COMMITTEE.
3. In charge of the research
activities of the Committee will be
a scientist of unimpeachable
integrity and national repute. In
addition there will be an Advisory
Board of scientists disinterested in
the cigarette industry. A group of
distinguished men from medicine,
science and education will be
invited to serve on this Board.
These scientists will advise the
Committee on its research
activities.
This statement is being issued
because we believe the people are
entitled to know where we stand on
this matter and what we intend to do
about it.
51. In this advertisement, the participating tobacco companies recognized their "special responsibility" to the public, and promised to learn the facts about smoking and health. The participating tobacco companies promised to sponsor independent research on the subject, claiming they would make health a basic responsibility, paramount to any other consideration in their business. The participating tobacco companies also promised to cooperate closely with public health officials. At the time these promises were made, Defendants had no intent to honor their promises. In fact, these promises so publicly and dramatically made to the public, the citizens of Texas and government regulators, have been breached over and over again.
52. After lulling the public into a false sense of security concerning smoking and health, the TIRC continued to act as a front for tobacco industry interests. Despite the initial public statements and posturing, and the repeated assertions that they were committed to full disclosure and vitally concerned with public health, the TIRC failed to make the public health a concern. Rather the TIRC, at the direction of the Tobacco Companies, acted to protect tobacco industry profits and failed to protect the public health. A coordinated, industry-wide strategy was designed to actively mislead and confuse the public about the true dangers associated with smoking cigarettes. Rather than work for the good of the public health and sponsor independent research, as it had promised, the Tobacco Companies, acting through the TIRC/CTR, concealed, undermined and distorted information coming from the scientific and medical community.
53. The Defendants, in their December 15, 1953 and subsequent meetings in forming, operating and maintaining the TIRC/CTR, knowingly replicated the framework of the "Big Three" combination in restraint of trade from the 1930s and 1940s by conspiring, agreeing and attempting to stabilize and protect their commodity's pricing structure from the "health scare" threat by, inter alia, 1) limiting and restricting scientific research and public dissemination of adverse product information or data from within the industry; 2) forming Ad Hoc Committees comprised of company lawyers to control jointly sponsored scientific research funded by and based upon market share percentages, in order to further conspiratorial objectives and self-policing; 3) conducting an extensive disinformation campaign to contradict or neutralize legitimate science and health reports linking smoking or tobacco use with cancer and disease, in order to stabilize and protect the tobacco market demand structure; 4) formulating combined and monopolistic opposition to any development and/or marketing of safer and/or alternative non-tobacco, non-nicotine, smoking devices by the conspirators or outsiders/non-conspirators; and 5) conspiring and combining to manipulate public and governmental awareness and responses to science adverse to the tobacco industry by a knowing, extensive and combined course of misrepresentation, deception and disinformation conducted via mail, wire, press, radio and television mediums, among others.
54. For purposes of this action, the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products is the relevant product market. The Tobacco Companies manufacture, ship and sell tobacco products throughout the United States. Relevant geographic markets are the United States and the State of Texas.
55. The tobacco industry is highly concentrated, and has been one of the most concentrated industries in the United States throughout this century. Six tobacco companies dominate and control the market for cigarettes and other tobacco products in the United States and Texas. These six tobacco companies -- American Tobacco, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, Philip Morris, Liggett, and Lorillard -- have a combined market share of nearly 100% of the market.
56. This market concentration and lack of significant price competition has long enabled the tobacco industry to be one of the most profitable businesses in the United States.
57. The concentration in the industry has also benefitted the Tobacco Companies and the Tobacco Trade Associations in their combination and conspiracy to control and maintain the market for cigarettes and other tobacco products.
58. All of the Defendants herein have acted pursuant to their conspiracy and agreement from 1953 without interruption until the present. The most recent example of Defendants' acts in furtherance of their conspiracy is the combined response of Brown and Williamson, Liggett, Lorillard, Philip Morris, and the Tobacco Institute in their January 1996 joint submission of twelve volumes in opposition to the 1995 proposed regulations of cigarettes and nicotine by the FDA. In this joint submission, Defendants perpetuate their disinformation campaign by denying that nicotine is a drug, by denying that cigarettes or smokeless tobacco are drug delivery devices, and by denying that nicotine in tobacco products is addictive.
59. The public disinformation strategy employed by the Tobacco Companies and the Tobacco Trade Associations was a strategy best described as "see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil" concerning the health effects of cigarette smoking. A publication called Tobacco and Health (later, Tobacco and Health Research) was created by the Tobacco Companies and the Tobacco Trade Associations and was used by them to disseminate false information and create confusion over the causal connection between cigarette smoking and disease. It was distributed to the press, doctors, and health officials. The "Criteria For Selection" of articles for publication included an example of "a report in which smoking-associated diseases are questioned."
60. The January 15, 1968 issue of True Magazine contained an article written by Stanley Frank called, "To Smoke or not to smoke--that is still the Question." The article dismissed the evidence against smoking as "inconclusive and inaccurate" and claimed that "Statistics alone link cigarettes with lung cancer...it is not accepted as scientific proof of the cause and effect." A few months later, a similar but shorter article appeared in the National Enquirer entitled "Cigarette Cancer Link is Bunk" written by "Charles Golden" (a fictitious name commonly used by the Enquirer.) The real author was Stanley Frank. Two million reprints of the True Magazine article were distributed to physicians, scientists, journalists, government officials, and other opinion leaders with a small card which stated, "As a leader in your profession and community, you will be interested in reading this story from the January issue of True Magazine about one of today's controversial issues." The cost for this was said by Brown and Williamson, Philip Morris and R. J. Reynolds. It was subsequently disclosed that author Frank had been paid $500 to write the article, by Joseph Field, a public relations professional working for Brown and Williamson. Brown and Williamson reimbursed Field for that amount.
61. Other public statements by the Defendants over the years have repeated the misrepresentations that the industry was dedicated to the pursuit and dissemination of the scientific truth regarding smoking and health.
62. For example, the Tobacco Institute in 1970 ran an advertisement captioned "A Statement About Tobacco and Health," which stated:
a. "We recognize that we have a special responsibility to the public--to help scientists determine the facts about tobacco and health, and about certain diseases that have been associated with tobacco use."
b. "We accepted this responsibility in 1954 by establishing the Tobacco Industry Research Committee, which provides research grants to independent scientists. We pledge continued support of this program of research until all the facts are known."
c. "Scientific advisors inform us that until much more is known about such diseases as lung cancer, medical science probably will not be able to determine whether tobacco or any other single factor plays a causative role -- or whether such a role might be direct or indirect, incidental or important."
d. "We shall continue all possible efforts to bring the facts to light."
63. Also, in 1970, the Tobacco Institute ran an advertisement captioned, "The question about smoking and health is still a question." In this advertisement, the Tobacco Institute stated:
a. "[A] major portion of this scientific inquiry has been financed by the people who know the most about cigarettes and have a great desire to learn the truth...the tobacco industry."
b. "[T]he industry has committed itself to this task in the most objective and scientific way possible". c. "In the interest of absolute objectivity, the tobacco industry has supported totally independent research efforts with completely non-restrictive funding."
d. "Completely autonomous, CTR's research is directed by a board of ten scientists and physicians...This board has full authority and responsibility for policy, development and direction of the research effort."
e. "The findings are not secret."
f. "From the beginning, the tobacco industry has believed that the American people deserve objective, scientific answers."
64. Again, in 1970, the Tobacco Institute stated, "The Tobacco Institute believes that the American public is entitled to complete, authenticated information about cigarette smoking and health". The Tobacco Institute further stated that, "The tobacco industry recognizes and accepts a responsibility to promote the progress of independent scientific research in the field of tobacco and health."
65. In direct contrast to what the Defendants were telling the public, a memo from Tobacco Institute vice president Fred Panzer to president Horace Kornegay dated May 1, 1972, acknowledges that the industry had employed a single strategy for nearly 20 years to defend itself on three major fronts: litigation, politics, and public opinion. This strategy consisted of "creating doubt about the health charge without actually denying it-- advocating the public's right to smoke, without actually urging them to take up the practice--encouraging objective scientific research as the only way to resolve the question of health hazard." Panzer said this strategy had been successful on the litigation front and had "helped make possible an orderly retreat" on the political front, but that the situation had deteriorated on the public-opinion front. To remedy the public- opinion problem, he proposed that the industry supply the public with "ready-made credible alternatives" to the prevalent view that smoking causes cancer, such as genetic and environmental explanations for smoking-related diseases.
66. The Tobacco Companies, through the Tobacco Trade Associations, intentionally breached their promises to the American public, to the citizens of Texas and to the State, to study and report independently and honestly on the health effects of smoking and the use of smokeless tobacco products. Defendants caused the cancellation of press conferences where their scientists sought to inform the public, actively and wrongfully suppressed the publishing of reports concerning the health dangers presented by cigarette smoking, attacked research linking smoking to disease, and threatened professionally the researchers themselves. Their scientists were not allowed to "freely publish what they find as they choose" as a CTR director once claimed.
67. Numerous scientists formerly employed by the Tobacco Companies and the Tobacco Trade Associations have spoken out against the suppression of scientific data and the practice of deception known to exist in the tobacco industry generally. For example, in April of 1994, Dr. Victor DeNoble, a former research scientist for Philip Morris, Inc., testified before the United States House of Representatives Health & Environment Subcommittee that the Philip Morris Company, in 1983, suppressed and refused to allow him or his colleague, Dr. Paul Mele, to publish or to talk publicly about the research that they had conducted with respect to nicotine tolerance in rats, the potentially addictive nature of nicotine in rats, and research with respect to synthetic nicotine substances. Dr. DeNoble testified that his research demonstrated that the animals would administer nicotine to themselves and that this fact indicated that nicotine had the potential to be addictive. Dr. DeNoble testified that the focus of his research was nicotine's effect on the brain, not nicotine's effect on the flavor of tobacco in cigarettes. He further testified that his laboratory was closed and his research was terminated following the filing of a lawsuit by Rose Cipollone against Philip Morris and other tobacco companies.
68. In a similar vein, Liggett & Myers, while publicly refusing to acknowledge the validity of Dr. Wynder's tests, hired the consulting firm of Arthur D. Little, Inc. to duplicate Dr. Wynder's tests. Defendant Lorillard Corporation also duplicated Dr. Wynder's mouse tests. The results of the duplicated tests were essentially the same as Dr. Wynder's, and both Liggett & Myers and Arthur D. Little became aware by 1954 of the cancer-causing propensity of cigarettes. A Liggett & Myers researcher requested that the results of this testing be published, but Liggett & Myers would not allow it. In furtherance of the conspiracy objectives of the TIRC, the results of these additional tests were never made public.
69. The vast body of credible medical and scientific evidence identifies smoking as the leading cause of lung cancer. Tobacco industry scientific consultants also have accepted the causal association between smoking and disease.
SAFER CIGARETTES SUPPRESSED
70. The Tobacco Companies could have designed and manufactured a safer cigarette, but refused to do so. The need for a "safer" tobacco product results from the harmful chemical compounds occurring in tobacco products and/or formed as a result of burning. These compounds include carbon monoxide, nicotine, nickel, carbon dioxide, benzene, hydrazine, formaldehyde, Polonium-210, ammonia, nicotine sulfate, Freon II, hydrogen cyanide and certain liver toxins known collectively as furans. More than forty (40) known carcinogens are found in cigarette tobacco. The Tobacco Companies artificially add chemicals and flavorings to their products that increase toxicity and/or carcinogenicity.
71. At Liggett & Myers, Dr. James Mold conducted tests to divide the components of cigarette smoke into separate entities and to interrupt the process that produces carcinogens by using a catalyst. Liggett & Myers researchers were able to produce a so-called "safer" cigarette, designated as the "XA Project" that eliminated the carcinogenic activity on mouse skin. However, Liggett & Myers did not want to be identified publicly as the source of the research behind this non-carcinogenic "safer" cigarette.
72. Liggett & Myers instructed its researchers that any meetings held that pertained to the "safer" cigarette project were to be attended by a lawyer and that all reports, notes or memoranda should go to the Liggett & Myers legal department. The "safer" cigarette was never marketed.
73. Liggett abandoned its XA Project for two apparent reasons. One was that Liggett feared that the marketing of a "safer" cigarette would be, in essence, a concession that its -- and the industry's -- other cigarettes were not safe. Second, industry leader Philip Morris threatened to retaliate against Liggett if it broke ranks with the industry conspiracy.
74. Dr. Mold, who was assistant director of research at Liggett during the development of the safer cigarette, has provided the following overview of the XA Project and its abandonment:
a. Dr. Mold stated that the XA project produced a safer cigarette. He stated, "We produced a cigarette which was, we felt, commercially acceptable as established by some consumer tests, which eliminated carcinogenic activity...."
b. Dr. Mold stated that after 1975, all meetings on the project were attended by lawyers. Lawyers collected notes after all meetings. All documents were directed to the law department to cloak the documents with the attorney-client privilege. He stated, "Whenever any problem came up on the project, the Legal Department would pounce upon that in an attempt to kill the project, and this happened time and time again."
c. Dr. Mold was asked why Liggett didn't market a safer cigarette. He stated, "Well, I can't give you, you know, a positive statement because I wasn't in the management circles that made the decision, but I certainly had a pretty fair idea why...(T)hey felt that such a cigarette, if put on the market, would seriously indict them for having sold other types of cigarettes that didn't contain this, for example...(a)t a meeting we held in...New Jersey at the Grand Met headquarters...at which the various legal people involved and the management people involved and myself were present. At one point, Mr. Dey...who at that time, and I guess still is the president of Liggett Tobacco, made the statement that he was told by someone in the Philip Morris Company that if we tried to market such a product that they would clobber us."
75. A memorandum authored by an attorney at the firm of Shook, Hardy & Bacon, long-time lawyers for the cigarette industry, confirmed the industry-wide position regarding the issue of a safer cigarette.
76. The 1987 memorandum was written in the context of the marketing by R.J. Reynolds of a smokeless cigarette, Premier, that heated rather than burned tobacco. The Shook, Hardy attorney wrote that the smokeless cigarette could "have significant effects on the tobacco industry's joint defense efforts" and "(t)he industry position has always been that there is no alternative design for a cigarette as we know them." The attorney also noted that, "Unfortunately, the Reynolds announcement... seriously undercuts this component of industry's defense."
TOBACCO, NICOTINE AND DEPENDENCY
77. The tobacco products manufactured and sold by the Tobacco Companies contain nicotine, a highly addictive substance. The Defendants know of the difficulties smokers experience in quitting smoking and of the tendency of addicted individuals to focus on any rationalization to justify their continued smoking. The Defendants exploit this weakness and capitalize upon the known addictive nature of nicotine. An internal tobacco industry memo acknowledged in 1972: "(w)ithout nicotine...there would be no smoking...the cigarette (is) a dispenser for a dose unit of nicotine." Nicotine addiction guarantees a market for cigarettes. The addictive nature of the nicotine in cigarettes virtually eliminates personal choice in those who become addicted.
78. The industry's recognition of the extent to which nicotine -- and not tobacco -- defines its product is illustrated in a 1972 Philip Morris report on a CTR conference, which stated:
As with eating and copulating, so it
is with smoking. The physiological
effect serves as the primary
incentive; all other incentives are
secondary. The majority of the
conferees would go even further and
accept the proposition that nicotine
is the active constituent of
cigarette smoke. Without nicotine,
the argument goes, there would be no
smoking."
***
Why then is there not a market for
nicotine per se, eaten, sucked,
drunk, injected, inserted or inhaled
as a pure aerosol? The answer, and
I feel quite strongly about this, is
that the cigarette is in fact among
the most awe-inspiring examples of
the ingenuity of man. Let me
explain my conviction.
The cigarette should be conceived
not as a product but as a package.
The product is nicotine.
***
Think of the cigarette pack as a
storage container for a day's supply
of nicotine...Think of the cigarette
as a dispenser for a dose unit of
nicotine.
79. Accordingly, the industry has developed sophisticated technology to control the levels of nicotine in cigarettes in order to maintain its market. David A. Kessler, M.D., Commissioner of Food and Drugs, recently testified before a congressional committee that cigarette manufacturers can manipulate precisely nicotine levels in cigarettes, manipulate precisely the rate at which the nicotine is delivered in cigarettes, and add nicotine to any part of cigarettes.
80. Dr. Kessler testified that "the cigarette industry has attempted to frame the debate on smoking as the right of each American to choose. The question we must ask is whether smokers really have that choice." Dr. Kessler stated:
Accumulating evidence suggests that
cigarette manufacturers may intend
this result -- that they may be
controlling the levels of nicotine
in their products in a manner that
creates and sustains an addiction in
the vast majority of smokers.
***
We have information strongly
suggesting that the amount of
nicotine in a cigarette is there by
design.
***
[T]he public thinks of cigarettes as
simply blended tobacco rolled in
paper. But they are much more than
that. Some of today's cigarettes
may, in fact, qualify as high
technology nicotine delivery systems
that deliver nicotine in precisely
calculated quantities -- quantities
that are more than sufficient to
create and to sustain addiction in
the vast majority of individuals who
smoke regularly.
***
[T]he history of the tobacco
industry is a story of how a product
that may at one time have been a
simple agricultural commodity
appears to have become a nicotine
delivery system.
***
[T]he cigarette industry has
developed enormously sophisticated
methods for manipulating nicotine
levels in cigarettes.
***
In many cigarettes today, the amount
of nicotine present is a result of
choice, not chance.
***
[S]ince the technology apparently
exists to reduce nicotine in
cigarettes to insignificant levels,
why, one is led to ask, does the
industry keep nicotine in cigarettes
at all?
***
81. In a subsequent appearance before Congress, Dr. Kessler testified that one manufacturer, Brown & Williamson, had developed a tobacco plant, code-named Y-1, with perhaps twice the nicotine content of regular tobacco. Brown & Williamson manufactured and marketed cigarettes with Y-1 tobacco in the United States in 1993.
82. The story of Brown & Williamson's development of Y-1 is one of the more egregious examples of the cigarette industry's concealment of its control and manipulation of the nicotine levels in its products.
83. On June 21, 1994, Dr. Kessler told the Waxman Subcommittee that FDA investigators had discovered that Brown & Williamson had developed a high nicotine tobacco plant, which the company called Y-1. This discovery followed Brown & Williamson's flat denial to the FDA on May 2, 1994, that it had engaged in "any breeding of tobacco for high or low nicotine levels."
84. When four FDA investigators visited the Brown & Williamson plant in Macon, Georgia on May 3, 1994, Brown & Williamson officials denied that the company was involved in breeding tobacco for specific nicotine levels. Only after the FDA had learned of the development of Y-1 in its investigation and confronted company officials with the evidence, did the company admit that it was growing and using the high-nicotine plant.
85. In fact, in a decade-long project, Brown & Williamson secretly developed a genetically-engineered tobacco plant with a nicotine content more than twice the average found naturally in flue-cured tobacco. Brown & Williamson took out a Brazilian patent for the new plant, which was printed in Portuguese. Brown & Williamson and a Brazilian sister company, Souza Cruz Overseas, grew Y-1 in Brazil and shipped it to the United States where it was used in five Brown & Williamson cigarette brands sold in Texas, including three labeled "light." When the company's deception was uncovered, company officials admitted that close to four million pounds of Y-1 were stored in company warehouses in the United States.
86. As part of its cover-up, Brown & Williamson even went so far as to instruct the DNA Plant Technology Corporation of Oakland, California, which had developed Y-1, to tell FDA investigators that Y-1 had "never [been] commercialized." Only after the FDA discovered two United States Customs Service invoices indicating that "more than a half-million pounds" of Y-1 tobacco had been shipped to Brown & Williamson on September 21, 1992, did the company admit that it had developed the high-nicotine tobacco.
87. Y-1 is one example of an overall trend in the tobacco industry to increase the nicotine content and/or impact of tobaccos.
88. As a result of the industry's actions, as many as 74% to 90% of smokers are addicted. Eight out of ten smokers say they wish they had never started smoking. Two-thirds of adults who smoke say they wish they could quit. Seventeen million try to quit each year, but fewer than one out of ten succeed. A high percentage of the smokers who have had surgery for lung cancer or heart attacks return to smoking, as do 40% of smokers who have had their larynxes removed.
89. Beyond its addictive qualities, nicotine is believed to contribute to cardiovascular disease and death -- a fact known to the cigarette industry for many years.
DECEIT AND FRAUD-A CONTINUING CONSPIRACY
AND COMBINATION IN RESTRAINT OF TRADE
90. The general counsel of the major cigarette manufacturers, through joint meetings to review and direct proposals for scientific research for the entire industry, aided in the conspiracy of the tobacco industry to defraud the public on the issue of tobacco and health.
91. The tobacco industry's combination in restraint of trade was also referred to as the "gentlemen's agreement." The "gentlemen's agreement" among the manufacturers was to suppress independent research on smoking and health. This agreement was referenced in a 1968 internal Philip Morris draft memo, which states, "We have reason to believe that in spite of gentlemens (sic) agreement from the tobacco industry in previous years that at least some of the major companies have been increasing biological studies within their own facilities." This memo also acknowledged that cigarettes are inextricably intertwined with the health field, stating, "Most Philip Morris products both tobacco and non-tobacco are directly related to the health field."
92. The industry believed that individual companies were performing certain research on their own in addition to the joint industry research. But the fundamental understanding and agreement remained intact; any harmful information and activities would be restrained, suppressed, and/or concealed. This secret agreement included restraining, suppressing, and concealing research on the health effects of smoking, including the addictive qualities of nicotine, and restraining, concealing, and suppressing the research and marketing of safer cigarettes.
93. The Defendants designed a litigation strategy over the years to conceal, delay, and to run up consumers' expenses in a war of attrition. For example, a memo written by J. Michael Jordan, an attorney for Defendant R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, noted: "(T)he aggressive posture we have taken regarding depositions and discovery in general continues to make these cases extremely burdensome and expensive for plaintiffs' lawyers, particularly sole practitioners. To paraphrase General Patton, the way we won these cases was not by spending all of Reynolds' money, but by making that other son of a bitch spend all his."
94. Additionally, corporate officials of the Tobacco Companies and the Tobacco Trade Associations have attempted wrongfully to create a privilege for various documents that they wish to conceal by sending such documents through their legal departments and law firms in order that they might claim the documents to be protected by the attorney-client or attorney work-product privileges. A "Special Projects" division within CTR was set up to conceal research that was harmful to the tobacco industry and to promote and develop research and expert witnesses needed for the defense of tort litigation. Incriminating reports and documents contained within this division were passed through attorneys and are now claimed by the Defendants to be privileged.
95. The industry has congratulated itself on a brilliantly conceived and executed strategy to create doubt about the charge that cigarette smoking is deleterious to health without actually denying it. A 1962 memo stated that they had handled the "emergency" (of the Wynder report) effectively, by treating the public health threat as a public relations problem that was solved for the self- preservation of the industry's image and profit. OneDefendant's executive called the CTR the best, cheapest insurance the tobacco industry can buy, noting that without it the Tobacco Companies would have to invent CTR or would be dead.
96. Not content with the holding strategy employed by the TIRC and the CTR, the Tobacco Companies advocated a more offensive role through their lobbying arm, the Tobacco Institute (TI). This tobacco industry-supported group actively seeks to increase doubt about the negative health effects of smoking by suggesting that there are alternative explanations to the data. One "theory" detailed how individual genetic makeups predisposed individuals to illness. Another, the "multi-factorial hypothesis," asserted that multiple factors should be blamed, i.e., food additives, viruses, occupational hazards, air pollution or stress, for causing cancer. The tobacco industry financed, supported and encouraged the manufacture of fraudulent science.
97. However, evidence began to surface concerning the Defendants' illegal scheme. On February 6, 1992, United States District Court Judge H. Lee Sarokin for the District of New Jersey issued an opinion in Haines v. Liggett Group, Inc., Civ. Action 84-678. After reviewing 1500 documents in camera, Judge Sarokin noted that "In 1954, the tobacco industry promised to disseminate the results of industry-sponsored, independent scientific research for the purpose of answering the question: "Does cigarette smoking cause illness?" To fulfill its promise, the tobacco industry proffered the allegedly "independent research organization, the Council for Tobacco Research (the 'CTR'), which purportedly would examine the risks of smoking and report its findings to the public." After his review of the withheld documents, Judge Sarokin concluded:
Despite the industry's promise to
engage independent researchers to
explore the dangers of cigarette
smoking and to publicize their
findings, the evidence clearly
suggests the research was not
independent; that potentially
adverse results were shielded under
the caption of "special projects;"
that the attorney-client privilege
was intentionally employed to guard
against such unwanted disclosure;
and that the promise of full
disclosure was never meant to be
honored, and never was.
As a result of this finding, Judge Sarokin went on to note:
A jury might reasonably conclude
that the industry's announcement of
proposed independent research into
the dangers of smoking and its
promise to disclose its findings was
nothing but a public relations ploy
-- a fraud -- to deflect the growing
evidence against the industry, to
encourage smokers to continue and
non-smokers to begin, and to
reassure the public that adverse
information would be disclosed.
98. Undaunted by Judge Sarokin's findings, in April, 1994, Tobacco Company executives asserted, under oath, that tobacco does not cause cancer, that nicotine is not addictive and that tobacco advertising does not target new smokers. Judge Sarokin's earlier written opinion in Haines is still valid for describing the Defendants: "...despite some rising pretenders, the tobacco industry may be the king of concealment and disinformation." Recently, the fight to uncover the truth has been joined by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
99. On February 25, 1994, David A. Kessler, M.D., Commissioner of the FDA, sent a letter to Scott D. Ballin, Esq., Chairman of the Coalition on Smoking OR Health, asserting:
Evidence brought to our attention is
accumulating that suggests that
cigarette manufacturers may intend
that their products contain nicotine
to satisfy an addiction on the part
of some of their customers. The
possible inference that cigarette
vendors intend cigarettes to achieve
drug effects in some smokers is
based on mounting evidence we have
received that: (1) the nicotine
ingredient in cigarettes is a
powerfully addictive agent and
(2) cigarette vendors control the
levels of nicotine that satisfy this
addiction.
100. In response to Kessler's letter, on March 15, 1994, in a letter to The New York Times, James W. Johnston, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of R.J. Reynolds, continued to assert that nicotine was not addictive. Johnston based his assertion upon the success rate of American adults who had quit smoking.
101. The Chief Executive Officers of The American Tobacco Company, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation, Philip Morris, Inc., Lorillard and Liggett Group, Inc. all testified under oath before the same Subcommittee in April of 1994 that they believed nicotine is not addictive.
102. The recent disclosures of the sworn testimony of a former research chief for Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation, Dr. Jeffrey S. Wigand, and former Philip Morris scientists, Jerome Rivers, Dr. Ian L. Uydess and Dr. William A. Farone, directly contradict the Tobacco Companies' CEOs' testimony regarding addiction, as well as the industry's denial of nicotine manipulation.
TARGETING CHILDREN
103. For many years, the Defendants have engaged in a vast and misleading promotional, public relations, and sham lobbying blitz that had as its goal increasing the numbers of people addicted to nicotine in cigarettes and/or smokeless tobacco products and decreasing the number of people who attempt or succeed in quitting. Their efforts have been and continue to be directed toward children. They have done so and continue to do so in contravention of their duty not to make false statements of material fact and their duty not to conceal such true facts from the public. At the cost of countless lives, the Defendants spend billions of dollars every year misleading the public and promoting the myth that smoking cigarettes and using smokeless tobacco products does not cause cardiovascular disease, lung and other cancers, emphysema and other diseases and that smokers live healthy and vital lives. The Defendants have at all pertinent times presented and promoted smoking as an attractive, glamorous, youthful, and relaxing pastime, associating it with movie stars, athletes and successful professionals.
104. Every day, more than 1,200 cigarette smokers die of cigarette-related diseases. Others manage to break their addiction to nicotine and quit. In order to prevent a precipitous decline in cigarette sales, the cigarette companies must attract more than 3,000 new smokers each day. Children and teenagers have become the main target; and as a result of the Tobacco Companies' fraudulent and false advertising, more than 3,000 of them begin the habit every day.
105. The Defendants specifically target children. By way of example, the Joe Camel campaign waged by Defendant R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company is intended to and has had great appeal to children. More than one million new underage smokers become addicted in the United States each year. Such efforts by the Defendants create more sales for the tobacco industry, and more resulting health care costs for the State.
106. As previously alleged, the Defendants have engaged in a concerted effort to circumvent and violate the laws of the State of Texas by targeting children with sophisticated promotional schemes designed to create successive generations of addicted customers. As a result of Defendants' campaigns, it is virtually impossible for parents or law enforcement resources to control the efforts of the Defendants to make children the users of tobacco products.
107. Despite the best efforts of parents, educators and the medical profession, smoking among young people has remained alarmingly constant since the late 1970s. Tobacco Companies use advertising to create a mental image associating smoking with health, glamorous and athletic lifestyles, and with success and sexual attractiveness. Their advertising and marketing campaigns increase demand for tobacco products among young people. The ease with which children and teenagers can obtain cigarettes from vending machines, assures that there is a ready supply to meet this demand. Results of
a Texas state-wide vending machine survey show children are successful in their attempts 90% of the time. It has been shown repeatedly that cigarette vending machines (even those located in bars and other supposedly adult locations) are readily available to children and teenagers. Within a short period of time, the young smoker becomes physiologically and emotionally dependent, i.e., addicted to tobacco. Later, as the maturing smoker begins to wish he or she could quit, advertising reinforces the practice and seeks to minimize health concerns, create doubt and confusion, which are used by smokers as an excuse to avoid the pain and discomfort of attempting to break their addiction to nicotine.
108. The advertising imagery used to promote smoking among young people particularly appeals to those with low self- esteem and emotional insecurity. Once the young person has been predisposed toward smoking, a variety of factors can precipitate actual experimentation. For many young people, the precipitating factor is being given a free pack of cigarettes by a tobacco company representative, or purchasing cigarettes in order to obtain an attractive t-shirt, baseball cap, or other gimmick used to promote cigarette smoking.
109. One of the best examples of this was the transformation of Marlboro cigarettes, from a red-tipped cigarette for women to the cigarette for the "macho cowboy". By changing advertising imagery, Philip Morris was able to tap into a wholly new and different market. In 1950, R.J. Reynolds was the king of the cigarette business. It sold more cigarettes than any other company. Philip Morris, though doing well on the basis of its fraudulent health-oriented advertising, was still far behind. In 1981, Philip Morris overtook R.J. Reynolds, and each year has extended its lead, by developing an effective marketing campaign for recruiting young new smokers to its brands. The wild spirit of the Marlboro man captured the adolescent imagination. The children and teenagers who started smoking Marlboro became tenaciously loyal customers. Soon, Marlboro became the "gold standard" of cigarettes among teenagers. Through the year 1988, nearly three-fourths of teenage smokers used Marlboro.
110. At about the time it lost market leadership to Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds dedicated itself to a ruthless advertising campaign encouraging children and teenagers to smoke. One of the key elements of the R.J. Reynolds' strategy for attracting children was to reposition many of its cigarette brands to younger audiences. Just as Marlboro was repositioned from the women's market, to the macho male market, by a new advertising campaign, R.J. Reynolds has positioned its cigarette advertising campaigns to younger and younger audiences, using a succession of advertising images of men engaged in extraordinary feats of physical and athletic achievements.
111. R.J. Reynolds' Vantage cigarettes entered the 1980s as a brand targeted at the health conscious adult smoker. Advertisements were intended to assuage fears of lung cancer and other diseases and give the concerned smoker arguments for rationalizing their continuation of the addiction Through multiple-advertising transmogrifications, Vantage cigarettes have been progressively repositioned to ever-younger audiences. During the mid-1980s, this advertising campaign featured young, successful professionals (including architects, fashion designers, lawyers, etc.) with the slogan "The Taste of Success." These ads promoted the implication that smoking is helpful-if not essential-to success or prominence. In the late 1980s, the advertising theme for Vantage cigarettes began to feature professional-caliber athletes and auto racers. These advertisements depict physical activity requiring strength or stamina beyond that of everyday activity. The obvious implication is that smoking does not harm you.
112. During the 1980s, advertising for Salem cigarettes also became more youth-oriented. Whereas the dominant advertising theme for Salem cigarettes used to be clean, fresh country air, during the 1980s`, Salem ads were populated by muscular surfers and bikini-clad women, fun-loving party animals, and other attractive adolescent role models. Another successful advertising campaign targeted at young people is the Lorillard Tobacco Company campaign promoting Newport cigarettes. Newport ads frequently show men and women in sexually suggestive positions always having fun, using the slogan "Alive With Pleasure."
113. Another successful advertising campaign has been the "You've Come A Long Way Baby" campaign, promoting Virginia Slims cigarettes. One of the most important psychological needs of most adolescent girls, is to become independent from their parents. By associating smoking with women's liberation, Philip Morris intended to create in the minds of teenage girls, the vision of smoking as a symbol of autonomy and independence. Ads for Virginia Slims and other "feminine" cigarettes prey upon the natural and common insecurity and sense of inferiority experienced by adolescents, by portraying the cigarette as a crutch and a symbol of superiority. Perhaps the most acute psychological need of adolescence is to fit in, to be accepted, to be popular. Ads for Philip Morris' Benson & Hedges cigarettes developed an image of smoking as a happy pleasure to be shared in the company of others and the easy road to instant acceptance within a group.
114. In today's culture, many teenage girls perceive that a prerequisite to popularity is to be thin. Philip Morris and other cigarette companies capitalize upon this perception by presenting cigarette smoking as a suitable alternative to a diet, for being thin. Virtually every "feminine" cigarette includes words like slim, light, super slim, ultra light, etc. The photographic imagery in cigarette advertising that targets young females universally portrays attractive young women in glamorous outfits. Smoking is thus associated with being sexy and beautiful. In cigarette ads, the air is fresh and clear; magical things happen. The reality is that cigarette smoking causes addiction, disease and death.
115. Many teenage boys fantasize about owning a powerful motorcycle. For this reason, many cigarette brands have used motorcycle imagery to encourage teenage boys to smoke. Many cigarette ads that target young boys glamorize high risk activities like hang gliding, motorcycle racing, mountain climbing, etc. Cigarette makers do this deliberately to undermine awareness that smoking is dangerous. In its campaign to attract adolescent boys to become smokers, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company has made extensive use of risk-taking and danger in its advertising. By glorifying risk-taking, these ads have a more insidious purpose. How a person estimates the magnitude and likelihood of a risk can be significantly affected by what it is compared against. By portraying dangerous activities like hang-gliding, mountain climbing, and stunt motorcycle riding in tobacco advertising, R.J. Reynolds minimizes the dangers of smoking in adolescent minds.
116. The great success that R.J. Reynolds had in its effort to overtake Philip Morris in the youth market is the "Joe Camel" cartoon character. This campaign was inaugurated in the United States in 1987 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Camel cigarettes. In the first ads, the camel leered out over the ad saying, "75 Years And Still Smoking." The implication is obvious. It soon became evident that "Joe Camel" would strike a responsive chord among children and teenagers and has been used by R.J. Reynolds to target children to get them to start smoking as early as possible, so they can become addicted to nicotine at the earliest age possible. R.J. Reynolds has more than tripled its advertising expenditures for Camel cigarettes since 1988, utilizing themes like "Joe Camel" guaranteed to be attractive to young people at high risk of becoming smokers.
117. When R.J. Reynolds began the Joe Camel cartoon campaign, Camel's share of the children's market was only 0.5%. In just a few years, Camel's share of this illegal market has increased to 32.8%, representing sales estimated at $476 million per year. Another indication of the phenomenal success of this marketing campaign is the fact that in a recent survey of six year olds, 91% of the children could correctly match Joe Camel with a picture of a cigarette, and both the silhouette of Mickey Mouse and the face of Joe Camel were nearly equally well-recognized by almost all children surveyed.
118. The themes within cigarette advertising are not the only feature of tobacco marketing that betray the real target. The location and placement of those ads further reveal that children are the intended target. During the decade of the 1980s, there was a steady migration of cigarette advertising into youth-oriented publications. Magazines with sexually-oriented themes and those concerning entertainment and sporting activities, had the highest concentration of cigarette ads. For many of these magazines, teenagers comprise a quarter or more of the total readership. Cigarette ads in these youth-oriented magazines were frequently multi-page, pop-up ads which are significantly more costly, but also more attention- grabbing than conventional ads. News magazines, like Time and Newsweek, which have older audiences, had few cigarette ads, and those tended to emphasize implicit health promises concerning tar and nicotine rather than glamorous images.
119. The cigarette companies sell more than one billion packs of cigarettes per year to children under the age of 18. In 1988, the tobacco industry reaped $221 Million in profits from $1.25 Billion in sales to children under the age of 18. Marlboro and Camel cigarettes dominate the teenage smoking market.
120. In late 1990, the Tobacco Institute, on behalf of the industry, inaugurated a public relations campaign designed to convince the public that the cigarette companies wished to discourage young people from smoking. Several tobacco companies began their own campaigns at the same time. In fact, these programs are just a continuation of the Defendants' ongoing fraud and conspiracy. While these programs call for age 18 as the national standard for tobacco sales to children, and for requiring "adult supervision" of cigarette vending machines, in fact, the Institute and Tobacco Companies hope to freeze the status quo with regard to children's access to tobacco as most states already have a minimum age of 18 or older. Brochures, like "Tobacco: Helping Youth Say No", are being distributed by the Institute and tobacco industry. In reality, this is a pro-smoking subterfuge. The brochure presents smoking as a permissible "adult" decision and smoking as something an "adult" can safely do. The only reason given children for not smoking is that -like getting married or driving a car - smoking is for grown ups. Of course, that message really makes the smoking more desirable to kids. An R.J. Reynolds' brochure even tells parents to tell their children that the parents smoke "because they enjoy it." None of these brochures disclose that smoking is highly addictive and harmful to human life.
121. Perhaps the most vicious element of this advertising campaign has been advertising aimed at young girls. Nearly every issue of magazines for young girls, like Teen and Young Miss, includes an advertisement by Reynolds urging children not to smoke. But the reasons given for refraining are not that smoking is addictive, that it can harm or kill the infants of pregnant women, or that it causes cancer and other lethal diseases; rather, the reason given is that it is an "adult decision."
122. The likely effect of these ads is that, rather than discouraging children from smoking, they plant in impressionable young girls' minds the notion that smoking is something to do to show one's independence, to act grown-up. This notion is, of course, reinforced by the ubiquitous cigarette ads depicting glamorous young adult women smoking, as a way of demonstrating their independence.
123. This despicable conduct has gone on for 40 years and continues into this decade. In January 1990, the Manager of Public Relations of R.J. Reynolds wrote the principal of a public school that:
The tobacco industry is also
concerned about the charges being
made that smoking is responsible for
so many serious diseases. Long
before the present criticism began,
the tobacco industry in a sincere
attempt to determine the harmful
effects, if any, smoking might have
on human health, established the
Council for Tobacco Research-USA.
The industry has also supported
research grants directed by the
American Medical Association. Over
the years the tobacco industry has
given in excess of $162 million to
independent research on the
controversies surrounding smoking -
more than all voluntary health
associations combined.
Despite all the research going on,
the simple and unfortunate fact is
that scientists do not know the
cause or causes of the chronic
diseases reported to be associated
with smoking. The answers to many
unanswered controversies surrounding
smoking - and the fundamental causes
of the diseases often statistically
associated with smoking - we do
believe can only be determined
through much more scientific
research. Our company intends,
therefore, to continue to support
such research in a continuing search
for answers.
124. The targeting of children, while unquestionably wanton, reckless, and unethical, and cynically denied by the industry, was and continues to be, vitally important to the tobacco industry. Children enticed into smoking provide a guaranteed future market for a product that kills the industry's customers by the hundreds of thousands.
125. The reckless disregard by the Defendants for the health risks for the youth and minorities of America, is reflected in the response of an R. J. Reynolds executive to the question of a former "Winston Man", David Goerlitz, when he asked why the R.J. Reynolds executives did not smoke: "We don't smoke the s---, we just sell it. We reserve that for the young, the black, the poor and the stupid."
FRAUDULENT ADVERTISING OF
TAR/NICOTINE CONTENT
126. The campaign of deception in advertising by the Defendants regarding filters and tar/nicotine content that began in the 1950s, has continued unabated through the present. Although an "FTC Method" has been developed that measures the amount of tar and nicotine in a cigarette with a "smoking machine" (measurements the Tobacco Companies advertise for their brands), the FTC method is not a valid or reliable method to measure tar/nicotine intake by "human smokers". In fact, the Tobacco Companies have specifically designed their products to deceive the public into thinking they are getting a low tar/nicotine cigarette, when in fact they are getting significantly higher deliveries of tar/nicotine in their smoke.
127. In 1982, The New York Times noted that Brown and Williamson had complained to the FTC that American Brands, Inc., Philip Morris, U.S.A. and R.J. Reynolds were engaging in deceptive advertising. While promoting very low-tar cigarettes packaged in flip-top boxes, the three were also marketing cigarettes containing 10 to 100 times more tar -- in look-alike soft packages. The Times also reported that Brown and Williamson's much publicized low-tar Barclay was designed to fool the FTC's smoking machines. The machines preserve Barclay filter -- but the human lips probably destroy it, giving smokers heavy doses of just what they were trying to avoid. In January 1983, Consumer Reports noted that while the Barclay ads claimed "1 mg. of tar," smokers actually got 3 to 7 times as much.
128. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Tobacco Companies have continued the "tar/nicotine reduction" deception by increasing bioavailability of nicotine through pH manipulation and use of additives, such as acetaldehyde to boost the reinforcer pharmacological impact of nicotine, while still publishing "FTC Method" measurements and advertising their products as "Light" or "Ultra-light".
OTHER TOBACCO PRODUCTS
129. The Defendants Brown & Williamson and R.J. Reynolds also manufacture and distribute loose tobacco used in the "roll your own" process of cigarette-making.
130. The "roll your own" tobacco products distributed in Texas by these Defendants are unreasonably dangerous to the consumer.
131. Even though the medical evidence regarding the hazards of cigarette smoking and addiction have been known to these Defendants for many years, the packages and containers of the "roll your own" tobacco bear no warning regarding such hazards.
132. The fact that nicotine delivered by tobacco products is highly addictive was carefully and comprehensily documented in the 1988 Surgeon General's Report, "The Health Consequences of Smoking: Nicotine Addiction." The major conclusions contained in this report are:
(1) "Cigarettes and other forms of tobacco are addicting"; (2) "Nicotine is the drug in tobacco that causes addiction"; and (3) "The pharmacologic and behavioral processes that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine addiction to drugs such as heroin and cocaine."
Likewise, in a 1988 report addressing the health effects of smokeless tobacco, the World Health Organization concluded:
"There is ample evidence that the
blood nicotine levels of smokeless
tobacco users were as high as or
even higher than those found in many
cigarette smokers. Its continued
use therefore, does cause addiction
and dependence in humans."
133. Nicotine in cigarettes and smokeless tobacco is now recognized as an addictive substance by such major medical organizations as the Office of U.S. Surgeon General, the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Society of Addiction Medicine, the American Public Health Association, and the Medical Research Counsel in the United Kingdom. The National Institute on Drug Abuse ("NIDA") has called cigarette smoking the most common example of drug dependence in the United States.
134. Despite their knowledge that cigarette smoking and the use of smokeless tobacco is, as a result of nicotine, extremely addictive, the Tobacco Companies to this day deny that smoking, "dipping," or "chewing" tobacco is addictive. Through their individual advertising and public relations campaigns, and collectively, through the Tobacco Institute, the Tobacco Companies have successfully promoted and sold tobacco products by concealing and misrepresenting the highly addictive nature of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco.
135. Defendant United States Tobacco Company makes approximately 90 percent of the oral snuff and chewing tobacco sold in the United States. As alleged above, smokeless tobacco delivers a similar amount of nicotine as cigarettes and is equally as addictive. Plaintiff is informed and believes that smokeless tobacco manufacturers intend to cause nicotine dependence among consumers through a strategy that involves promoting the use of lower nicotine brands with the intent of moving users up to higher, more addictive brands over time. The "graduation" strategy calls for three different brands of low, medium and high nicotine content. The strategy is based on the premise that new users of smokeless tobacco are most likely to begin with products that are milder tasting, more flavored and lighter in nicotine content. After a period of time, there is a natural progression to products switching to brands that are more full-bodied and have more concentrated tobacco taste, with more nicotine, than the entry brand. This graduation strategy is supported by the manufacturers' advertising practices which indicate the manufacturers' intent to have consumers experiment with low-nicotine brands and graduate to higher-nicotine brands over time.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND DISCLOSURES
136. After an extensive investigation, in August, 1995, the FDA published its report and proposed regulations of cigarettes and nicotine. The results of that inquiry and analysis support a finding that nicotine in cigarettes and smokeless tobacco is a drug, and that these tobacco products are drug delivery devices within the meaning of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
137. The August 1995 FDA report included findings on the statements, research and actions by the Tobacco Companies. The factual findings of the FDA investigation cover the following subjects:
A. Industry Statements on Nicotine Drug Effects.
B. Industry Research on the Drug Effects of Nicotine.
C. Industry Research on the Consumers' Need for an Adequate Dose of Nicotine.
D. Industry Product Development Research to Ensure an Adequate Dose of Nicotine.
E. Industry Manipulation and Control of Nicotine Delivery in Marketed Tobacco Products.
F. Industry Knowledge that Nicotine's Sensory Effects are Secondary to its Pharmacological Effects.
G. Industry Failure to Remove Nicotine from Tobacco Despite Available Technology.
The above-referenced FDA findings are set forth in pages 121-318 of the August 1995 report that are attached hereto as Exhibit 2.
138. On May 12, 1994, Stanton A. Glantz, Ph.D., a professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and a scholar interested in the field of tobacco and the public health, received from an unknown source, "Mr. Butts," approximately 4000 pages of memoranda, reports, and letters, covering a 30-year period, from the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corporation (B&W) and its parent company, the British American Tobacco Company (now BAT Industries). In the subsequent months, Glantz received several thousand additional pages of documents from Congressman Henry Waxman's House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment and another few hundred pages of documents from the estate of the chief scientist of BAT. Glantz ultimately put all the documents into the library at UCSF. The July 19, 1995 Journal of the American Medical Association is largely devoted to an analysis by Glantz and his colleagues of these three sets of documents.
139. As reported in JAMA, the documents show:
1) that research conducted by Tobacco Companies into the deleterious health effects of tobacco was often more advanced and sophisticated than studies by the medical community; 2) that executives at B&W knew early on that tobacco use was harmful and that nicotine was addictive and debated whether to make the research public; 3) that the industry decided to conceal the truth from the public; 4) that the industry hid its research from the courts by sending the data through its legal departments, and that its lawyers asserted that the results were immune to disclosure in litigation because they were the privileged product of the lawyer-client relationship; and, 5) that despite knowledge to the contrary, the industry's public position was (and continues to be) that the link between smoking and ill-health was not proven, that they were dedicated to determining whether there was such a link and revealing this to the public, and that nicotine was not addictive.
140. The pertinent articles of the July 19, 1995 JAMA are as follows:
1) "Looking Through a Keyhole at The Tobacco Industry: The Brown and Williamson Documents," pages 219-224, JAMA, July 19, 1995-Vol. 274, No. 3, Glantz, et al.;
2) "Lawyer Control of the Tobacco Industry's External Research Program: The Brown and Williamson Documents," pages 241-247, JAMA, July 19, 1995-Vol. 274, No. 3, Bero, et al.;
3) "Lawyer Control of Internal Scientific Research to Protect Against Products Liability Lawsuits: The Brown and Williamson Documents," pages 234-240, JAMA, July 19, 1995, Vol. 274, No. 3, Hanauer, et al.; and
4) "Nicotine and Addiction: The Brown and Williamson Documents," pages 225-233, JAMA, July 19, 1995, Vol. 274, No. 3, Slade, et al. Copies of the above referenced JAMA Articles are attached as Exhibits 3, 4, 5 and 6, respectively.
141. Factual details of how the tobacco industry and Hill & Knowlton initiated its public fraud campaign are set forth in a Staff Report dated May 26, 1994, prepared for the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, U.S. House of Representatives. A copy of this report is attached as Exhibit 7.
142. Factual details of nicotine manipulation by the American Tobacco Company are set forth in a Staff Report dated December 20, 1994, prepared by the Majority Staff for the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, entitled "Evidence of Nicotine Manipulation by the American Tobacco Company." A copy of this report is attached as Exhibit 8.
THE IMPACT OF DEFENDANTS'
ACTIONS ON THE STATE OF TEXAS
143. Tobacco-caused disease has killed, and continues to kill, millions of Americans. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has estimated that, currently, more than 400,000 Americans die each year from smoking; that is 26 times more deaths than result from illegal drugs and indicates that approximately one in five deaths is attributable to smoking. Thousands of Texas citizens die each year as a result of smoking cigarettes. According to the Texas Bureau of Vital Statistics, 25,900 Texans died in 1993 as a result of tobacco use.
144. The economic consequences of smoking cigarettes are equally staggering. In May of 1993, the Office of Technology Assessment advised the United States Congress that in 1990, smoking-related illnesses cost United States taxpayers a total of approximately $50 billion in direct health care costs; $68 billion in indirect costs for morbidity; and $40.3 billion in direct costs for mortality.
145. The State spends millions of dollars each year to provide or pay for health care and other necessary facilities and services on behalf of indigents and other eligible citizens whose health care costs are directly caused by tobacco-induced cardiovascular disease, lung and other cancers, emphysema, other respiratory diseases as well as the complications of pregnancy and childbirth including, but not limited to, low-weight babies.
146. The State of Texas has suffered damages from the Defendants' illegal and tortious conduct and as a result of their unreasonably dangerous products. Those damages include, but are not limited to, costs and expenditures from the public fund in the following areas: the Medicaid Program, the State Employee Group Insurance Program, the State Employee Retirement System, charity care and related health and wellness programs.
147. The State of Texas, as an employer which provides health coverage for its approximately 250,000 employees and retirees pursuant to statutory and contractual obligations, is mandated by law to offer comprehensive and major medical health coverage and benefits that include coverage for treatment of smoking-caused diseases. The State of Texas has entered into contractual agreements with certain health care service providers and plans in order to make available to its employees health coverage that includes these mandated benefits. In fiscal year 1995, the State paid more than $820 million in claims and premium payments to insurance carriers for such benefits. The State of Texas has paid and will pay substantial sums of money pursuant to these statutory and contractual obligations due to the increased cost of providing health care services for treatment of smoking-caused diseases. These increased expenditures have been caused by the unlawful actions of the Defendants.
148. The State of Texas operates a number of health care facilities, including state hospitals and university health science centers, that provide medical care to qualifying persons who are not eligible for Medicaid. The State of Texas pays for all or part of this care. The State of Texas has expended and will expend substantial sums of money due to the increased cost of providing health care services for treatment of smoking-related diseases. These increased expenditures have been caused by the unlawful actions of the Defendants.
149. The State of Texas has expended and will expend substantial sums of money to fund and promote wellness and healthy lifestyle programs in order to reduce health care costs, including smoking cessation. In addition, the State of Texas operates a program of preventive health services for state employees. These expenditures have been and will be increased by the unlawful actions of the Defendants.
CONSPIRACY AND CONCERT OF ACTION
150. From the 1950s and continuing through the filing of this suit, the Tobacco Companies have entered into agreements to suppress, distort and/or obfuscate scientific and medical information relating to the use of tobacco products and the resulting diseases.
151. The Tobacco Companies participated in and cooperated with each other in the above conspiracy enabling each and every manufacturer and distributor of tobacco products to take the position that the association between using tobacco products and disease had not been established.
152. In order to carry out their conspiracy, the Tobacco Companies and Hill and Knowlton, Inc. formed the Tobacco Institute and the Council for Tobacco Research.
153. The TI and the CTR actively participated in the conspiracy to conceal and suppress the hazards of cigarette smoking and use of smokeless tobacco products.
154. The TI and the CTR, acting on behalf of the Tobacco Companies, monitored research and literature in the scientific and medical communities regarding cigarette smoking and/or smokeless tobacco products, and actively attempted to suppress any negative reports.
155. When TI and CTR were unsuccessful in suppressing negative reports regarding cigarette smoking, the two organizations acted to challenge, dilute and diminish the influence of such reports.
156. As a result of the conspiracy, the Tobacco Companies were able to continue selling tobacco products to an unsuspecting and confused public, including the Texas citizens who had relied on their misrepresentation to their detriment.
157. As a result of the conspiracy, government regulators were mislead and deceived; thereby distorting perceptions and understanding of regulators whose task was to properly assess and control the hazards presented by cigarette use and/or smokeless tobacco products.
158. As a direct and proximate result of the Defendants' actions, the consumers of tobacco products became ill and required medical care paid for by the State.
AIDING AND ABETTING LIABILITY
159. The actions of the Defendants, individually and collectively, provided substantial support and encouragement and aid to the Tobacco Companies in the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products.
160. All of the Defendants, individually and collectively, aided and abetted the fraud perpetuated on the State of Texas, government regulators and the citizens of Texas.
161. All of the Defendants, individually and collectively, aided and abetted the sale of tobacco products that they knew to be hazardous and defective.
CAUSES OF ACTION
COUNT ONE
FEDERAL RACKETEER INFLUENCED
AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATION ACT
162. The State of Texas incorporates and adopts by reference the allegations contained in this Complaint.
163. In implementing the fraudulent objectives of the TIRC/CTR and the advertising/marketing campaigns as set forth above, the Defendants repeatedly have committed acts prohibited by Federal law, including 18 U.S.C. 1341 and 1342, which constitute predicate acts of mail and wire fraud, respectively, within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. 1961(1). These acts were related in their common objective, or were consistently repeated, and are capable of further repetition. This conduct constitutes a pattern of racketeering activity within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. 1961(5).
164. The Defendants' schemes or artifices to defraud the public regarding their tobacco products and health issues have involved fraudulent misrepresentations and/or omissions reasonably calculated to deceive persons of ordinary prudence and comprehension.
165. The Defendants engaged in schemes outlined supra to defraud members of the public and used the U.S. mails for the purpose of executing or attempting to execute such schemes in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1341, which states:
"Whoever, having devised or
intending to devise any scheme or
artifice to defraud, or for
obtaining money or property by means
of false or fraudulent pretenses,
representations, or promises, or to
sell, dispose of, loan, exchange,
alter, give away, distribute,
supply, or furnish or procure for
unlawful use any counterfeit or
spurious coin, obligation, security,
or other article, or anything
represented to be or intimated or
held out to be such counterfeit or
spurious article, for the purpose of
executing such scheme or artifice or
attempting to do so, places in any
post office or authorized depository
for mail matter, any matter or thing
whatever to be sent or delivered by
the Postal Service, or takes or
receives therefrom, any such matter
or thing, or knowingly causes to be
delivered by mail according to the
direction thereon, or at the place
at which it is directed to be
delivered by the person to whom it
is addressed, any such matter or
thing, shall be fined not more than
$1,000 or imprisoned not more than
five years, or both."
166. The Defendants' engaged in the above-described schemes to defraud members of the public by transmitting fraudulently deceptive and misleading information and advertisements by means of wire, radio and television communication in interstate commerce, and making misrepresentations of material fact, resulting in passage of money to these same companies in response to their misrepresentations in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1343, which states: "Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."
167. The Tobacco Companies' representatives, acting in their official capacities, have violated the prohibitions set forth at 18 U.S.C. 1962(Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) by participating in a commercial enterprise or an enterprise affecting commerce through a pattern of specific racketeering activity. Section 1962 states in part:
"(c) It shall be unlawful for any
person employed by or associated
with any enterprise engaged in, or
the activities of which affect,
interstate or foreign commerce, to
conduct or participate, directly or
indirectly, in the conduct of such
enterprise's affairs through a
pattern of racketeering activity
...
"(d) It shall be unlawful for any
person to conspire to violate any of
the provisions of subsection (a),
(b), or (c) of this section.
168. The Defendants' knowing and concerted actions from December 15, 1953 through the present, constitute a pattern of racketeering activity as defined by 18 U.S.C.A., 1961.
169. The State of Texas has been injured in its business and property by reason of Defendants' violation of 18 U.S.C.A., 1962, i.e., as a direct result of the public fraud perpetrated by a pattern of conduct violative of 18 U.S.C.A., 1341 and 1343, millions of Texas citizens have commenced and continue to smoke cigarettes or consume smokeless tobacco products requiring the State to incur significant costs and expenses in administering the State's health-related programs.
COUNT TWO
FEDERAL ANTITRUST LAW; SHERMAN ACT SECTION 1
CONSPIRACY TO RESTRAIN TOBACCO MARKET
170. The State of Texas realleges and incorporates herein the foregoing allegations of this Complaint.
171. Beginning at a time uncertain, but at least as early as the 1950s, and continuing to the present, Defendants have entered into a contract, combination, or conspiracy in unreasonable restraint of trade and commerce in the market for cigarettes and other tobacco products in the United States, including the State of Texas, in willful and/or flagrant violation of 15 U.S.C. 1. The market for cigarettes and tobacco products is directly related to and inextricably intertwined with health care.
172. This contract, combination, or conspiracy had the purpose and effect of restraining competition in the market for cigarettes and other tobacco products in the United States, including the State of Texas, and controlling the market for cigarettes and other tobacco products in the United States, including the State of Texas, by anti- competitive patent accumulation practices and other conduct restraining and suppressing the competition, research, development, production and marketing of a higher quality and safer cigarette and tobacco product. Defendants' restraint of trade and commerce has resulted in millions of persons beginning and continuing to smoke, causing the cost of medical care for Texans to increase dramatically and impacting Federal and State Medicaid expenditures and related programs as set forth above.
173. Defendants' anti-competitive activity affected the price of cigarettes and other tobacco products in the U.S.; restrained and suppressed competition in the research, development, production, and sale of alternative products, and resulted in artificially-inflated demand for Defendants' cigarettes and other tobacco products.
174. The Defendants, through their funding and control of certain studies concerning the effects of the use of tobacco products on human health, their control over trade publications, promoting, marketing, and/or through other agreements, understandings and joint undertakings and enterprises, conspired with, cooperated with and/or assisted each other in the wrongful suppression, active and fraudulent concealment and/or misrepresentation of the true relationship between tobacco products and various diseases, all to the detriment of the public health, safety and welfare and thereby causing harm to the State and diminution of the State's assets.
175. As a direct result of Defendants' unlawful activity, the State will continue to suffer substantial injuries to its business and property.
176. Unless enjoined from doing so, Defendants will continue to violate the federal antitrust laws.
COUNT THREE
TEXAS FREE ENTERPRISE AND ANTITRUST ACT OF 1983,
SECTION 15.05(a)
CONSPIRACY TO RESTRAIN TOBACCO MARKET
177. The State of Texas incorporates and adopts by reference the allegations contained in this Complaint.
178. Beginning at a time uncertain, but at least as early as the 1950s, and continuing to the present, Defendants have entered into a contract, combination, or conspiracy in unreasonable restraint of trade and commerce in the market for cigarettes and other tobacco products in the United States, including the State of Texas, in willful and/or flagrant violation of TEX. BUS. & COM. CODE 15.05(a). The market for cigarettes and tobacco products is directly related to and inextricably intertwined with health care.
179. This contract, combination, or conspiracy had the purpose and effect of restraining competition in the market for cigarettes and other tobacco products in the United States, including the State of Texas, and controlling the market for cigarettes and other tobacco products in the United States, including the State of Texas, by anti-competitive patent accumulation practices and other conduct restraining and suppressing research on the harmful effects of smoking; restraining and suppressing the dissemination of information on the harmful effects of smoking and the use of smokeless tobacco; and restraining and suppressing the competition, research, development, production and marketing of a higher quality and safer cigarette and tobacco product. Defendants' restraint of trade and commerce has resulted in millions of persons beginning and continuing to smoke, causing the cost of medical care for Texans to increase dramatically and impacting Federal and State Medicaid expenditures and related programs as set forth above.
180. Defendants' anti-competitive activity affected the price of cigarettes and other tobacco products in the State of Texas; restrained and suppressed competition in the research, development, production, and sale of alternative products; and resulted in artificially-inflated demand for Defendants' cigarettes and other tobacco products.
181. As a direct result of Defendants' unlawful activity, the State will continue to suffer substantial injuries to their business and property.
182. Unless enjoined from doing so, Defendants will continue to violate the Texas antitrust laws.
COUNT FOUR
NEGLIGENCE
183. The State of Texas realleges and incorporates herein the foregoing allegations of this Complaint.
184. The Defendants had a duty to exercise reasonable care in the manufacture, sale and/or distribution of Defendants' cigarettes and/or smokeless tobacco products.
185. The Defendants breached that duty by the conduct alleged above.
186. As a result of Defendants' breach, citizens of the State of Texas became nicotine dependent and contracted diseases as a result. The State was required to provide medical and other assistance to these tobacco consumers.
COUNT FIVE
STRICT LIABILITY FOR DEFECTIVE AND
UNREASONABLY DANGEROUS PRODUCT
187. The State of Texas realleges and incorporates herein the foregoing allegations of this Complaint.
188. The Defendants collectively sold or aided and abetted in the sale of cigarettes, "roll your own" tobacco and smokeless tobacco products, which products were and are defective and unreasonably dangerous.
189. The Tobacco Companies' tobacco products are designed, manufactured, marketed and/or sold by the Defendants to be smoked, chewed or dipped by the consuming public.
190. The smoking of cigarettes and/or the chewing or dipping of tobacco products was not only a foreseeable use, it was the very purpose for which these Defendants manufactured, sold or distributed their tobacco products.
191. At all pertinent times, the Defendants knew, or should have known, that the smoking of cigarettes and/or use of smokeless tobacco products was and is hazardous to human health.
192. Cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products are abnormally and unreasonably dangerous. The health risks and costs of cigarette smoking and using smokeless tobacco products to the citizens of the State and to the State, greatly outweigh any claimed utility of the tobacco products. The Defendants knew, or should have known, of the dangers inherent in the use of their tobacco products and that the public and the State's fund and its citizens' property would be directly harmed and diminished by the intended and foreseeable use of their tobacco products.
193. For many years, the Defendants have been engaged in the business of manufacturing, testing, designing, promoting, marketing, packaging, selling, distributing, and/or placing into the stream of commerce into the State, numerous defective, unreasonably dangerous and hazardous tobacco products or, in the course of their business, materially have participated with, conspired with and/or otherwise aided, abetted and assisted other Defendants in doing so.
194. As a direct and proximate result of the defective design, testing, manufacturing, marketing, and assembly choices and practices of the Tobacco Companies, the Tobacco Companies' cigarettes, "roll your own" tobacco and smokeless tobacco products were and are themselves defective and unreasonably dangerous.
195. The Tobacco Companies' tobacco products reached the users, consumers and bystanders thereof in substantially the same condition that they were in when originally manufactured, distributed and sold by the Tobacco Companies. At the time the Tobacco Companies' tobacco products were sold or placed on the market, they were in a defective condition, unreasonably dangerous to users and consumers.
196. The defective condition of the Tobacco Companies' tobacco products directly and proximately caused thousands of Texans to suffer various tobacco-related diseases, injuries and sicknesses, and directly and proximately caused the State to expend millions of dollars in order to provide necessary health care to these citizens, thereby damaging the State.
197. At all pertinent times, it was foreseeable by the Tobacco Companies that certain of the Texas residents who used the Tobacco Companies' tobacco products would become ill and suffer injury, disease and sickness as a direct result of using the tobacco products as the Tobacco Companies intended. It was further foreseeable by the Tobacco Companies that the State would be required, in the past and in the future, to expend millions of dollars each year to provide necessary medical treatment and facilities to those citizens so injured.
198. The residents of the State of Texas used the Tobacco Companies' tobacco products in the manner in which the tobacco products were intended to be used, without any substantive alteration or change in the product.
199. The Tobacco Companies' tobacco products were delivered to the residents of the State of Texas in a condition that was unreasonably dangerous to the user. The Tobacco Companies expected and intended for the products to be used by residents of the State of Texas without substantial change affecting the unreasonably dangerous condition.
200. The Tobacco Companies' tobacco products were unreasonably dangerous due to their design in that:
a. The tobacco products failed to perform as safely as an ordinary consumer would expect when used as intended;
b. The risk of danger in the design of the tobacco products outweighed any benefits associated with the use of the tobacco products; and
c. The manufacturers of "roll your own" tobacco failed to provide any warnings of the dangerousness of their tobacco products.
201. In breaching their duties to the consumers, as described above, the Tobacco Companies acted intentionally, recklessly, maliciously and wantonly in that each Tobacco Company knew or should have known, through information available exclusively to them, that their tobacco products were defective and unreasonably dangerous. The Tobacco Companies further knew or should have known that their breach of duty would result in the injuries complained of herein.
COUNT SIX
BREACH OF EXPRESS AND/OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES
202. The State of Texas realleges and incorporates herein the foregoing allegations of this Complaint.
203. The Tobacco Companies made affirmations or promises regarding the health effects of their products to the public. The Tobacco Companies affirmed or promised through their "Frank Statement" in 1954 and subsequent representations through the present, to study the health effects of their products and fully disclose the results of this research to the residents of the State of Texas.
204. These affirmations, as well as the extensive advertising of the industry, became the basis of the bargain for many individuals, both in beginning to use tobacco or continuing to use tobacco. The residents of the State of Texas, including Medicaid recipients, relied on these continuing affirmations in buying and using the Tobacco Companies' products. The residents of Texas relied on the Tobacco Companies' skill or judgment in manufacturing a product fit for human consumption.
205. The Tobacco Companies' products are unmerchantable and are unfit for safe use when sold and consumed as intended. The Tobacco Companies have breached their implied warranty of merchantability because their products are not fit for their intended purposes. The Tobacco Companies had reason to know that the particular purposes for which their products are intended are unreasonably dangerous.
206. The Tobacco Companies have breached both the express and implied warranties described above.
207. As a direct result of the Defendants' breach of express and implied warranties of merchantability, the State has been damaged because it has incurred medical expenses under the Medicaid Program and other programs in the treatment of sickness, disease or injury caused by the Defendants' conduct.
COUNT SEVEN
RESTITUTION-UNJUST ENRICHMENT
208. The State of Texas alleges and incorporates herein the foregoing allegations of this Complaint.
209. Many of the State's citizens who are afflicted with tobacco-related diseases are poor and unable to provide for their own medical care, and must rely upon the State to provide for their care. This reliance results in an extreme burden on the taxpayers and the financial resources of this State. Yet, these very citizens, along with our youth, are targeted by tobacco promotional techniques. Texas taxpayers have expended hundreds of millions of dollars in caring for their fellow citizens who have suffered from tobacco-related illness.
210. The State was legally obligated to pay the aforementioned sums and did not conduct itself in any wrongful manner in being so obligated to pay and in paying the aforementioned sums.
211. The Defendants have been unjustly enriched as a result.
212. While the State and its various agencies and institutions are struggling to pay for the health care costs of tobacco, the tobacco industry and its co-conspirators continue to reap billions of dollars in profits from the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products.
213. The Defendants have avoided regulations and have promoted the sale of their tobacco products to the citizens of Texas by continuing to misinform the federal and State authorities about the true carcinogenic, pathologic and addictive qualities of cigarettes and other tobacco products.
214. The Defendants have spent billions of dollars on targeted marketing programs designed to encourage children to purchase and smoke cigarettes and use other tobacco products, which is prohibited by the laws of Texas.
215. The Defendants, not the taxpayers of Texas, should bear the costs of tobacco-related diseases. By avoiding their own duties to stand financially responsible for the harm done by their cigarettes and other tobacco products, the Defendants wrongfully have forced the State of Texas to perform such duties and to pay the health care costs of tobacco related disease. As a result, the Defendants have been unjustly enriched to the extent that the State of Texas has had to pay these costs.
COUNT EIGHT
COMMON LAW PUBLIC NUISANCE
216. The State of Texas realleges and incorporates herein the foregoing allegations of this Complaint.
217. The Defendants have intentionally interfered with the public's right to be free from unwarranted injury, disease and sickness and have caused damage to the public health, the public safety and the general welfare of the citizens of Texas, and have thereby wrongfully caused the State to expend millions of dollars in support of the public health and welfare.
COUNT NINE
NEGLIGENT PERFORMANCE OF A
VOLUNTARY UNDERTAKING
218. The State of Texas realleges and incorporates herein the foregoing allegations of this Complaint.
219. The Defendants voluntarily assumed the duty and responsibility to report honestly and completely on all research regarding cigarette smoking and/or use of smokeless tobacco products and health, based upon their public pronouncements to do so.
220. The Defendants breached this duty by not only failing to report on such research, but also knowingly and actively publishing and publicizing fraudulent science.
221. The Defendants further breached this duty by suppressing negative research data regarding cigarettes and health.
222. The Defendants knew or should have known that the State, government regulators and others would rely on their pronouncements.
223. The Defendants knew or should have known that such reliance would result in injury.
COUNT TEN
FRAUD, INTENTIONAL
MISREPRESENTATION
224. The State of Texas realleges and incorporates herein the foregoing allegations of this Complaint.
225. The Tobacco Companies and the Tobacco Trade Associations, have conspired together, sometimes acting through a clandestine "Special Projects" program of the Tobacco Institute Research Committee, later called the Council for Tobacco Research-U.S.A. Inc., for the purpose of fraudulently misleading the public, including Texas citizens, the State and government regulators, with regard to the health risks of smoking, all for the purpose of enhancing the Defendants' profits from the sale of their cigarettes.
226. Specifically, and in addition to the allegations above, the Tobacco Companies and Tobacco Trade Associations knew of the hazards of using tobacco products. The Defendants affirmatively and actively concealed information that clearly demonstrated the dangers of using tobacco products and affirmatively misled the public with regard to the material and clear risks of using tobacco products. The Defendants knowingly engaged in these activities with the intent that the public would continue to purchase the Defendants' tobacco products. The Defendants knew that the public, particularly children, would not be in a position reasonably to discover and understand the true risks of the use of tobacco products, and the public relied upon the misleading information that the Defendants promulgated to their detriment.
227. At all pertinent times, the Defendants purposefully and intentionally engaged in these activities, and continue to do so, knowing full well that when the State's citizens use their tobacco products as those products are intended to be used, that the State's citizens would suffer disease, injury and sickness and that the State would be injured thereby.
228. At all pertinent times, the Defendants purposefully and intentionally engaged in these activities, and continue to do so, with knowledge that the State would be obligated to, and would, provide health care and other necessary facilities and services for certain of the State's citizens and that the State itself would be harmed.
229. At all pertinent times, these Defendants, individually and collectively, had a duty not to deceive or mislead government regulators or the public. Defendants intentionally breached their duty not to deceive or mislead the public and governmental regulators by their individual and collective activities.
230. The statements and representations made and promotional schemes used by the Defendants were deceptive, false, incomplete, misleading and untrue. The Defendants knew, or should have known, that the statements, representations and advertisements were deceptive, false, incomplete, misleading and untrue at the time of making such statements. The Defendants had an economic interest in making such statements. The residents of Texas who purchased and used the Defendants' tobacco products had no knowledge of the falsity, misleading or deceptive nature of the Defendants' statements, representations and advertisements when they purchased the Defendants' tobacco products; moreover, those citizens had a right to rely on such statements, representations and advertisements. Each of the Defendants' misleading and deceptive statements, representations and advertisements were material to those residents' purchasing the Defendants' tobacco products in that Texas residents would not have purchased the Defendants' tobacco products if Defendants would have honestly told the public about the dangerousness of their products.
231. The residents of Texas, the State and government regulators had a right to rely upon the representations of the Defendants.
232. The Defendants intentionally suppressed material facts about the hazards of the use of tobacco products.
233. The Defendants knowingly and intentionally lied and deceived the government regulators who sought to investigate the hazards of tobacco products and control those hazards through regulations.
234. The Defendants participated in advertising of tobacco products that portrayed them as, at best, harmless and, at worst, healthy; such a portrayal was an intentional misrepresentation of the hazardous nature of their tobacco products.
235. The purpose of the suppression of damaging research data and the manufacture of fraudulent science was to confuse potential consumers about the hazards of tobacco products in order to encourage users to continue to consume Defendants' tobacco products.
236. The consumers of tobacco products relied on Defendants' advertising, purchased Defendants' tobacco products and consumed the tobacco products to their harm and detriment.
237. As a result, the tobacco consumers became ill and required medical care for which the State was required to pay.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
The State of Texas prays for relief and judgment against the Defendants, jointly and severally, as follows:
a. Declaring that Defendants have violated the provisions of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C.A. 1962;
b. Enjoining the Defendants and their respective agents, servants, officers, directors and employees from any further violations of the provisions of 18 U.S.C.A. 1962;
c. Declaring that Defendants have engaged in unreasonable restraints of trade and commerce in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. 1 and 15.05(a), Tex. Bus. & Com. Code;
d. Ordering the Defendants to dissolve the Council for Tobacco Research and the Tobacco Institute;
e. Enjoining the Defendants and their respective agents, servants, officers, directors and employees from unreasonable restraints of trade and commerce in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act and Section 15.05(a) of the Texas Free Enterprise and Antitrust Act of 1983.
f. Awarding the State recovery under 15.20(a) of the Texas Free Enterprise and Antitrust Act of 1983 against each Defendant in the sum of One Million Dollars ($1,000,000.00) for each violation of said Act;
g. Awarding the State money damages for an amount that is sufficient to provide restitution and repay the State and the Medicaid Program for the sums it has spent or will spend, past and present, and such other monetary damages as provided by law on account of the Defendants' wrongful conduct, which amount is to be determined at trial by a jury;
h. Awarding the State prejudgment interest, the State's reasonable attorneys' fees, expert witness fees, and costs of this action;
i. Awarding the State punitive money damages against the Defendants for their intentional wrong-doing in an amount that will sufficiently punish the Defendants for their conduct and that will deter such conduct in the future;
j. Declaring that the Defendants, now and in the past, use and did use marketing and advertising campaigns that target and/or encourage children to purchase and consume tobacco products;
k. Enjoining the Defendants from using marketing or advertising campaigns that target and/or encourage children to purchase and consume tobacco products;
l. Awarding the State such other extraordinary equitable, declaratory and/or injunctive relief as permitted by law as necessary to assure the State has an effective remedy;
and
m. For such other and further relief, as the Court deems just and proper, that the State is entitled to receive.
