United States Ninth Circuit

Public hospital districts may not bring federal and state claims against tobacco firms to recover their unreimbursed costs for treating patients suffering from tobacco-related illnesses under federal antitrust laws, RICO or the Washington Consumer Protection Act.

Appellate Information

• Argued 12/14/2000
• Decided 02/22/2001
• Published 02/22/2001

Judges

• O'SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge:, Before:  BOOCHEVER, O'SCANNLAIN and TASHIMA, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Michael K. Vaska (argued), Bradley J. Berg, Steven G. Jones, and Chryssa V. Deliganis, Foster Pepper & Shefelman PLLC, Seattle, Washington, for the plaintiffs-appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Herbert M. Wachtell (argued), Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, New York, New York, and John W. Phillips, Leonard J. Feldman, and Judith H. Ramseyer, Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe LLP, Seattle, Washington, for defendant-appellee Philip Morris Incorporated;  Bradley S. Keller, Byrnes & Keller, LLP, Seattle, Washington, and H. Joseph Escher, III and Peter J. Busch, Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin, San Francisco, California, for defendant-appellee R.J. Reynolds Tobacco;  John A. Tondini, Byrnes & Keller, LLP, Seattle, Washington, and Jeffrey Davidson and Tony L. Richardson, Kirkland & Ellis, Los Angeles, California, for defendant-appellee Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.;   Christopher W. Tompkins, Betts Patterson & Mines, P.S., Seattle, Washington, and Jeffrey S. Nelson and Tina M. Schaefer, Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P., Kansas City, Missouri, for defendant-appellee Lorillard Tobacco Company;  Thomas R. Merrick, Bullivant, Houser, Pendergrass & Hoffman, Seattle, Washington, for defendant-appellee British-American Tobacco Co., Ltd.;  Delber D. Miller and Heidi Bateman, Miller Bateman LLP, Seattle, Washington, for defendant-appellee United States Tobacco Company;  John D. Wilson and David M. Jacobi, Wilson Smith Cochran & Dickerson, Seattle, Washington, for defendant-appellee Smokeless Tobacco Council, Inc.;   James R. Murray and Franklin D. Cordell, Gordon Murray Tilden, Seattle, Washington, for defendant-appellee The Tobacco Institute, Inc.;   James H. Jordan, Jr., Miller, Nash, Wiener, Hager & Carlsen, Seattle, Washington, for defendant-appellee The Council for Tobacco Research-U.S.A., Inc.;  Thomas J. Brewer and Steven T. Seward, Wickwire, Green, Crosby, Brewer & Seward, Seattle, Washington, for defendant-appellee Hill & Knowlton, Inc.