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The Tobacco Agreement That Went Up in Smoke: Defining the Limits of Congressional Intervention into Ongoing Mass Tort Litigation |
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Maria Gabriela Bianchini |
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| Mass tort litigation is a topic discussed
often in legal scholarship. Although Congress
could provide an alternative forum to the courts
in which to remedy mass tort injuries, Congress
has not passed comprehensive mass tort reform
legislation, and the legal literature has not
examined implications that might stem from
legislative reform. Recently, major tobacco companies and the attorneys general of forty states asked Congress to enact a legislative version of the Proposed Tobacco Industry Settlement, a document the state attorneys general and the tobacco companies had originally negotiated in the course of litigation. In considering whether to enact the Proposed Settlement, Congress became directly involved in resolving a mass tort suit. Recognizing that the litigants who drafted the Proposed Settlement essentially sought to substitute a legislative remedy for a judicial remedy in resolving the suit, this Comment uses the document to discuss differences between legislative and judicial treatment of mass tort cases and the possible implications of substituting the political process for the judicial process. It asks what limits, if any, Congress should recognize on the political process when it intervenes into ongoing mass tort litigation. |
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Copyright
© 1999 by California Law Review, Inc. |
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