Tobacco Industry

HUNTINGTOWN -- Sitting in a Rube Goldberg-like contraption attached to the back of a tractor, Courtney Curlett picked up the tender, young tobacco plants and hand-fed them into a machine that dug holes in the soil below, watered the plants and set them in neat rows. The teen-ager was getting a lesson from Bryan Wood, son of tobacco farmer Frank Wood, in how to place the plants in the machine. Helen Marcellas and Sammy Jones -- friends of the Wood family -- worked alongside them in the four-seat planter as it was pulled slowly up and down the dusty field.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to hear a plea by the tobacco industry to be freed from wide-ranging controls by states and cities on how it sells cigarettes, chewing tobacco and cigars. The court accepted two new appeals by the industry as one of its first actions since recessing last month after the hotly disputed election case that cleared the way for former Texas Gov. George W. Bush to win the presidency. The justices showed no sign of wanting to avoid a new controversy.

The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us.-- Theodore Roosevelt THE Montgomery County Council recently took a bold step to protect the health of Maryland's citizens and visitors by approving an ordinance that will reprimand anyone who smokes or discards tobacco products on sidewalks, lawns or other areas of Friendship Heights. The council understands its obligation to protect citizens from hazardous conditions. This is a critical action toward reducing death and disease caused by smoking and is no less meaningful than attempting to get the cocaine out of crack-infested areas.

Two years after states and tobacco companies reached the largest legal settlement in history, health advocates give the deal a decidedly mixed report card, expressing disappointment that it has not more radically changed cigarette marketing. The deal's clearest impact was to help drive up the price of cigarettes, leading to a 9 percent drop in sales nationwide last year. Hundreds of millions of settlement dollars have begun to pour into anti-tobacco ads and quit-smoking programs that could produce future reductions.

Tobacco industry attorneys say the law firm of Peter G. Angelos contributed little to the national tobacco settlement and deserves a fee of no more than $28 million, less than 3 percent of what Angelos is seeking. The industry says in legal papers that the Angelos firm broke no new legal ground and did not participate in settlement talks. In addition, the papers say, the Angelos firm should not be paid for extensive work performed on the case by the office of Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. and by a New Jersey attorney who helped with the lawsuit.

WASHINGTON - A federal judge killed parts of the federal government's sweeping lawsuit against the cigarette companies yesterday but kept alive a broad claim that might yet force the industry to forfeit billions of dollars in profits. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler, in a 55-page opinion, ruled that the government had put forth a strong enough claim of a possible violation of anti-racketeering law to justify going forward on that part of the case. Specifically, she decided that the government could pursue its theory that as long as the companies remain in the tobacco business, "they will have countless opportunities and temptations to take unlawful actions, just as it is alleged they have done since 1953."

The Republican Congress imperiled the trust bar by repealing the estate tax on the super rich, who would no longer require their lawyers to avoid it. If Al rushed in to save the game at Camp David, we might just elect him. Experts urge more summer school. If only the schools were air conditioned. A Florida jury convicted the tobacco industry for giving cigarettes to our troops, of aiding the enemy.

In perhaps the oddest twist so far in their battle over legal fees in Maryland's tobacco lawsuit, Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. struck another blow yesterday against Peter G. Angelos -- by asking the court to pay him more than $5.2 million and praising his firm's aggressive legal work. The payment, meant to be a down payment on Angelos' ultimate fee, was necessary to permit the state to file an application to have that fee paid by the tobacco industry. The 49-page fee application filed yesterday, which will go to a three-member arbitration panel, speaks highly of the Angelos firm's work and asks for a "generous award" to compensate the firm.

State attorneys general are taking the extraordinary precaution of hiring bankruptcy lawyers out of fear that a colossal damage award in a Florida class-action lawsuit could trigger a tobacco industry bankruptcy and stop the flow of settlement payments to the states. Christine Gregoire, Washington attorney general, said a panel of attorneys general will be interviewing bankruptcy counsel tomorrow, adding that the states "have every intent of holding [cigarette makers'] feet to the fire" regarding payment obligations under $246 billion in settlements reached in 1998 with the states.

Handing Peter G. Angelos a first-round victory in his fee battle with the state, a judge kept open yesterday the possibility that the Baltimore lawyer may be able to collect more than $1 billion of Maryland's tobacco settlement.Baltimore Circuit Judge Clifton J. Gordy refused the state's request that he order Angelos to collect his fee for handling Maryland's tobacco lawsuit from the tobacco industry.Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. immediately appealed the ruling, saying he still believes Angelos must seek payment from the industry before trying to collect his fee from the state.