The Oregon Supreme Court has dismissed a class-action lawsuit seeking to compel the tobacco industry to pay for medical monitoring of smokers, the Associated Press reported May 1.

In a unanimous decision, the court ruled that smokers cannot pursue a negligence case against the tobacco industry absent actual harm. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of about 400,000 Oregon smokers, sought relief for individuals who potentially could be harmed because the industry "knew or should have known that their cigarettes contained toxic and hazardous substances likely to cause lung cancer."

A "threat of future physical harm is not sufficient" to bring suit, the state high court ruled. However, experts said that scientists may soon be able to show the damage caused by smoking even before disease develops. "We're probably about two years away before we can say whether we can detect lesions early enough to know what the effect will be," said Thomas Glynn of the American Cancer Society.