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OCR Page 1 of 909/10/97 WED 11:50 FAX 202 514 8071
CIVIL OAAG
cc: Bruce R/Bruce L
002
Tobacco- legal itsues
TOBACCO
U.S. Department of Justice
Class Actions
Office of the Assistant Attorney General
PEOMITION
POLICE
Civil Division
FRITZIA
George Jordan Phillips
950 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Room 3143
Counselor to the Assistant Attorney General
Washington, D.C. 20530
(202) 514-5713 Fax (202) 514-8071
September 10, 1997
VIA FACSIMILE
(202) 456-2878
Ms. Elena Kagan
Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy
Old Executive Office Building, Room 218
Washington, D.C. 20501
RE: Class Action Developments
Dear Ms. Kagan:
This letter is intended to update you about the status of the
plaintiffs' success in lawsuits against tobacco companies in being
certified as class actions. Since out briefing, the plaintiffs in
the Pennsylvania case dropped the claims related to paying for
treatment for smoking related diseases and restricted them to
requiring the injunctive relief of just medical monitoring so that
the federal court has now tentatively certified this action as a
class action. (See attached article.)
In our earlier briefing we reported that a Pennsylvania
federal district court had denied a requested class action. Arch
V. American Tobacco Co., 1997 WL 312112 (E.D. Pa. 1997).
In Barnes V. American Tobacco Co., 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12814
(E.D. Pa. 8/22/97), the district court granted a motion to
certify a narrower class of smokers than the proposed class in
Arch (although the case caption has changed, Barnes and Arch
are the same civil actions). This is the first time that a
federal district court has certified a class of smokers
against the tobacco industry.
The Barnes plaintiffs have dropped all the previous claims
against the tobacco companies except for a claim for medical
monitoring. The counts for negligence, intentional exposure
to a hazardous substance, and strict products liability were
excluded from the latest complaint. In light of these
changes, the district court certified a class of all current
residents of Pennsylvania who are cigarette smokers as of
December 1, 1996, and who began smoking before age 19, while
they were residents of Pennsylvania.
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