Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #116166

Sara D. Guardino, JD, Northeastern University School of Law, Tobacco Control Resource Center, 102 The Fenway, Cushing Hall Suite 117, Boston, MA 02115, 617-373-8494, sara@tplp.org and Richard A. Daynard, JD, PhD, School of Law, Northeastern University, 400 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115.

Smoking and health litigation is an effective public health strategy, and has succeeded in helping change the tobacco industry's behavior in ways that legislation has not. Punitive damages awards are a powerful component of such litigation, serving to punish the industry's past wrongdoing and to prevent such wrongdoing in the future. Without the threat of such sanctions, the tobacco industry has little incentive to change its dangerous course of conduct and can continue, unchecked, to undermine the public health. This risk is not theoretical. Our extensive research has revealed that the industry knowingly has used its enormous wealth to engage in litigation tactics that wear down plaintiffs. The industry thus has been able to evade significant punitive damages awards against it. Additionally, of those punitive damages awards that juries have handed down in recent cases against the industry, many have been overturned or reduced significantly during the protracted appeals process that the industry pursues after every adverse judgment against it. To halt this trend, the tobacco control community needs a proper analysis of the law on punitive damages to argue effectively – both in court and in public health forums – that high awards are a warranted and necessary public health measure. This presentation will put forth such an argument, focusing on the particular reprehensibility of the industry's behavior, the industry's use of its wealth to engage in litigation tactics that have allowed it to evade capture, and the need for a powerful financial disincentive to deter the industry's lethal misbehavior.

Learning Objectives:

• At the conclusion of this session, attendees will be able to articulate in public policy debates that the availability of high punitive damages awards against the tobacco industry is necessary to motivate the industry to change its health-damaging conduct.

Keywords: Cancer Prevention, Public Health Policy

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation