High court undoes Scalia's pro-tobacco order [View All]

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia exercised a rarely used power last fall to let Philip Morris USA and three other big tobacco companies delay making multimillion-dollar payments for a program to help people quit smoking.

Scalia, who is a cigarette smoker himself, justified acting on his own by predicting that at least three other justices would see things his way and want to hear the case, and that the high court then would probably strike down the expensive judgment against the companies.

This week, the court said Scalia was wrong about that. The justices rejected the cigarette makers' appeal in a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of smokers in Louisiana.

The court's action had the effect of re-imposing the companies' obligation to pay for the smoking cessation program.

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20110630/D9O628080.html

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In this Sept. 8, 2010 file photo, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia speaks in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Morry Gash, File)