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Non-Tech : Philip Morris - A Stock For Wealth Or Poverty (MO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ralph Bergmann who wrote (3457)	3/29/1999 6:57:00 PM
From: dper	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6439

Monday March 29, 5:31 pm Eastern Time Company Press Release Philip Morris Hails Decision by Third Circuit Affirming Dismissal of Union Fund Lawsuit NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 29, 1999--The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, sitting in Philadelphia, today affirmed the dismissal of a class action brought by seven labor union health and welfare funds in Pennsylvania. The funds were seeking reimbursement for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in costs attributable to the alleged smoking-related illnesses of their members. ''We are delighted that the highest court yet to rule on these contrived lawsuits has concluded that the funds' claims are totally without merit,'' said Steven B. Rissman, assistant general counsel for Philip Morris. ''This decision reinforces and extends rulings from more than a dozen federal district courts which in the past year have dismissed similar cases on the grounds that union funds and other insurers are simply too far removed from the alleged harm to bring direct claims against the tobacco industry. ''Today's decision in the Steamfitters case should prove to be as decisive a blow to the so-called health care reimbursement suits as the Fifth Circuit's 1996 Castano decision was to smoker class actions,'' Rissman said. ''It is clear from Chief Judge Becker's 43-page opinion that the laws in this country do not go out the window merely because a defendant may be politically unpopular. This result, therefore, should not be viewed simply as a win for the tobacco industry. It is a victory for our judicial system as a whole.'' Of the 70 or so union fund cases filed by plaintiffs' contingency fee lawyers against the tobacco industry, only one - known as the Ohio Ironworkers case - has proceeded to trial. Less than two weeks ago, a unanimous federal court jury in Akron, Ohio, returned a verdict in favor of the major U.S. tobacco manufacturers after concluding that they were not liable for any medical costs paid by Ohio's union funds to treat the alleged smoking-related illnesses of their members. ''In view of the Ohio experience, we are pleased that even when judges fail to apply the law and permit these cases to go to trial, a jury will ultimately reach the correct conclusion: that these cases are baseless in both law and fact,'' Rissman said. Additional labor fund appeals are pending in four other U.S. Courts of Appeal.