Amazon.com Review
Billed as the "Mother of All Lawsuits," the legal action taken against the tobacco industry in 1994 had all the trappings of an epic battle, and
Cornered: Big Tobacco at the Bar of Justice often reads like reporting from the front lines--which, in many ways, it is. On one side, deeply entrenched, rested the mammoth legal forces representing the tobacco industry, hardened by nearly continual attacks since the early 1950s and supported by enormous war chests that usually allowed them to hang on until their opponent ran out of financial and legal resources. On the other side, mounting their attack, sat 65 of the most famous and feared trial and personal-injury lawyers in the country--complete with monikers such as "The King of Torts," "The Master of Disaster," and "The Asbestos Avenger"--who were willing to pool their resources, talent, and expertise (and attempt to table their competitiveness and often their hatred for one another) in order to reap the massive payoff that the $50 billion dollar industry could supply. The opportunity for such a confrontation came after Merrell Williams, a Louisville paralegal, stole roughly 4,000 pages of confidential tobacco-company documents and handed them over to the Mississippi attorney general, Michael Moore. Moore, later joined by 39 other states' attorneys general operating on a different front, sought to go after the tobacco industry to receive payment for Medicaid bills to treat those with smoking-related diseases. These documents exposed the Achilles' heel of Big Tobacco, opening the door to the eventual $368 billion settlement. Despite the staggering numbers, the deal has been labeled a sellout by many health groups and lawmakers alike. Investigative journalist Peter Pringle meticulously details the entire complicated trial in
Cornered, and his countless interviews with the major players allow him to paint vivid portraits of the lawyers and lawmakers, many of them brandishing egos as large as the settlement itself.
From Publishers Weekly
Taking a classic David and Goliath story, veteran newspaper reporter Pringle turns in a superb piece of reporting written with all the texture, detail and intrigue of a fine legal thriller. Pringle sees a hero in the events that led to the landmark legal settlement that compels top U.S. tobacco companies to pay $369 billion over 25 years to help the states pay for cigarette-related health care costs. Multimillionaire lawyer Wendell Gauthier of New Orleans dared to weld a coalition of the nation's leading liability lawyers, who, allied with public health activists, took on Big Tobacco. The dramatic events that led to the settlement make for a remarkable story, and Pringle gets the human details just right. His riveting canvas is peopled with dying cancer patients, angry "tobacco widows," smugly overconfident tobacco industry lawyers, compromised scientists, mendacious public relations executives and courageous whistle-blowers. He searchingly delves into the motives of the anti-tobacco lawyers?some driven by social conscience, others by guilt, still others by a religious conviction that their crusade involved doing God's work. His hard-hitting report is strewn with juicy tidbits, like this 1972 memo from a Philip Morris psychologist: "Think of the cigarette as a dispenser for a dose unit of nicotine." Not merely a thumb-wagging expose of corporate venality, this is an exceedingly well-wrought account of legal sparring and the slow awakening of federal and state government to a public health issue. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
