By Rich McHugh and Likhitha Butchireddygari The lawyer who took down Big Tobacco 20 years ago has another intimidating foe in his sights. In the 1990s, as Mississippi's attorney general, Mike Moore launched a lawsuit against 13 tobacco companies that eventually resulted in a $246 billion, 50-state settlement.
By Rich McHugh and Likhitha Butchireddygari The lawyer who took down Big Tobacco 20 years ago has another intimidating foe in his sights. His opponent this time — Big Pharma. In the 1990s, as Mississippi's attorney general, Mike Moore launched a lawsuit against 13 tobacco companies that eventually resulted in a $246 billion, 50-state settlement.
When he decided to fight Big Tobacco all those years ago, Moore says, even his mother questioned his judgment given the power and deep pockets of the opposition. But his then unorthodox legal strategy worked, and he thinks he can use the same approach to win again. "I'm going to win this fight.
Big Tobacco Guilty As Charged. In a landmark 2006 judgment, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler found the major U.S. tobacco companies had violated civil racketeering laws (RICO) and engaged in a decades-long conspiracy to deceive the American public about the health effects of smoking and their marketing to children.
You have to stop,” Cynthia Robinson wants to tell the tobacco industry. The Florida widow recently won a $23.6 billion lawsuit against tobacco company R.J. Reynolds, one of the largest recent judgments on the industry, and in an interview with TIME, she says she hopes they listen to the jury's message.
Jeffrey WigandJeffrey WigandEducationMA/PhDAlma materUniversity at BuffaloOccupationExpert witness, consultantKnown forWhistleblower on the tobacco industry4 more rows
Dr. Jeffrey Wigand exposed safety problems related to the tobacco industry. In 1995, Dr. Wigand achieved national prominence when he became the tobacco industry's highest ranking former executive to address public health and smoking issues.
$206 billion The largest civil litigation settlement in U.S. history occurred in 1998 between the attorneys general of 46 states, Washington, D.C., and five U.S. territories, and the nation's four largest tobacco companies.
In the MSA, the original participating manufacturers (OPM) agreed to pay a minimum of $206 billion over the first 25 years of the agreement.
Hope MayJeffrey Wigand / Spouse
A fictionalized account of a true story, it is based on the 60 Minutes segment about Jeffrey Wigand, a whistleblower in the tobacco industry, covering his and CBS producer Lowell Bergman's struggles as they defend his testimony against efforts to discredit and suppress it by CBS and Wigand's former employer.
The top executives of the seven largest American tobacco companies testified in Congress today that they did not believe that cigarettes were addictive, but that they would rather their own children did not smoke.
Sherron Watkins'Justice was served': Enron whistleblower reflects on 20th anniversary of company's collapse. Sherron Watkins was an Enron VP when she warned boss Ken Lay of an impending "implosion."
Jeffrey Wigand : Pascagoula Testimony. This is a portion of the transcript of a session of the pretrial deposition of Jeffrey S. Wigand. The November 29, 1995 testimony was given in a lawsuit brought by the State of Mississippi seeking reimbursement for the cost of smoking-related illnesses.
Jeffery Wigand was dealing with an ill-structured type of problem. The term ill-structured problem is defined in the textbook as a problem in which the existing and desired states are unclear and the method of getting to the desired state is unknown.
Chip Robertson, a former chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court , said that many have tried to do what Moore is doing and given up. "Mike's not afraid of anybody because Mike believes that he's doing the right thing," said Robertson. A veteran of Moore's winning fight against Big Tobacco, he has now joined Moore's team ...
He's recruited 23 state attorney generals so far.
Moore, who’s 65, served as Mississippi’s attorney general from 1988 to 2004. In 1994, using an untested and widely derided legal strategy, he became the first state AG to sue tobacco companies for lying about nicotine addiction and hold them accountable for sick smokers’ health-care costs.
Mike Moore made cigarette companies pay for the high cost of treating smokers. Here he comes again. Seven years ago, Mike Moore stepped from the 2 a.m. darkness into the light of a small home off Lakeland Drive in Jackson, Miss., to find his nephew close to death.
An alumnus of Ole Miss, where he wore his hair long and jammed on a synthesizer in a rock band, Moore’s expertise is in glad-handing and dealmaking. “My talents are not writing briefs, they are not researching the law,” he says. “I know people. I know how to deal with people.
Another synthetic analog to the opium poppy, fentanyl —the drug that killed Prince—is as much as 100 times stronger than morphine. The night of the overdose, Moore’s nephew had been wearing a fentanyl patch on his arm and sucking on another.
After his 16 years as AG, Moore left public service for a private-sector salary, opening a practice in the Jackson suburb of Flowood.
Seven years ago, Mike Moore stepped from the 2 a.m. darkness into the light of a small home off Lakeland Drive in Jackson, Miss., to find his nephew close to death. The 250-pound 30-year-old was slumped on the living room couch, his face pale, breath shallow, and chest wet with vomit. It was his fiancée who’d called Moore, waking him in a panic.
Officially, Moore’s name is listed only on cases filed by Mississippi, which was the first state to sue, and Ohio. But this belies his outsize role in convening the like-minded while envisioning the long-term, big-picture strategy.