Trial Pitting Lorillard Against Legacy Foundation Opens May 12, 2005
News Summary
Lorillard Tobacco Company told a Delaware judge that the American Legacy Foundation violated the terms of the 1998 nationwide tobacco settlement by "vilifying" tobacco firms and executives, the New York Times reported May 11.The company is suing the nonprofit prevention foundation -- established with tobacco-settlement money -- and says Legacy should be forced to return its funding and be replaced with a new organization. Lorillard lawyers said the ads should only have focused on tobacco products, not the industry itself.
Legacy officials replied that while its ads are hard-hitting and edgy, the intent was to focus attention on industry marketing aimed at youth, not to attack tobacco executives personally. Lorillard said that the ads met the definition of "vilify" -- meaning to debase, degrade, or lower the target's standing. But Legacy countered that vilify means to make false or abusive statements, and said its ads were factual and took a humorous or satirical tone.
Under the settlement agreement, Legacy receives $25 million per year from the industry for 10 years.
The ads included scenes of young people loading body bags onto trucks in front of a tobacco-company office, and another where a young man offers to sell tobacco companies dog urine as a source for the urea found in cigarettes.
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