Light Cigarettes

The first specific fraud finding Defendants challenge relates to their marketing of “light” cigarettes. The district court found: “As their internal documents reveal, Defendants engaged in massive, sustained, and highly sophisticated marketing and promotional campaigns to portray their light brands as less harmful than regular cigarettes.”
The court concluded “Defendants have known for decades that filtered and low tar cigarettes do not offer a meaningful reduction of risk, and that their marketing which emphasized reductions in tar and nicotine was false and 43 misleading.” Id. Defendants contend they should be immune from liability because the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) has blessed their use of labels such as “light” and “low tar.” This argument is entirely foreclosed by the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Altria v. Good, concluding the FTC has never condoned the use of “light” or “low tar” descriptors.
Defendants point to a 1966 industry guidance letter from the FTC stating that “a factual statement of the tar and nicotine content (expressed in milligrams) of the mainstream smoke from a cigarette,” as measured by the Cambridge Filter Method. The “Commission made clear, however, that the guidance applied only to factual assertions of tar and nicotine yields and did not invite any ‘collateral representations . . . made, expressly or by implication, as to reduction or elimination of health hazards.’”