[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 85 (Wednesday, June 18, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H3892]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 ONGOING TOBACCO INDUSTRY NEGOTIATIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Waxman] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, the negotiations that are going on at the 
present time with the tobacco industry, they are requesting that they 
be excused from punitive damages.
  I want to point out to my colleagues that the tobacco industry for 4 
decades has misled and deceived the American people about their 
product. They have lied to the Congress, and they have kept documents 
secret. Last week we revealed documents that had not been public before 
from the Liggett Tobacco Co. where they had an attorney-client 
privilege to try to keep these documents from the public where they 
knew about a safer cigarette but did not want to make a safer cigarette 
because their lawyers said that would mean that the cigarette they were 
already making was unsafe and they would be presumably admitting that.

                              {time}  1315

  They refused to turn over to medical people information about the 
harm from cigarettes because they were fearful of the liability that 
might attach to them.
  Now those documents are simply the tip of the iceberg. There are over 
150,000 documents that have claimed to be attorney client privilege. 
The attorney client privilege will not shield documents if there is 
fraud or criminal conduct involved, and I believe that if these 
documents become public, they may well lead to criminal charges being 
brought.
  One of the reasons the tobacco industry is so anxious for a 
settlement is that one of the terms of their settlement is that these 
documents would be kept secret forever.
  Now if these documents became public, we would know whether there 
ought to be punitive damages in some of these lawsuits. How can we 
agree in any negotiation to excuse the tobacco industry from punitive 
damages without knowing all the facts?
  So I would hope that those people that are sitting down and 
discussing what might be a recommendation to the Congress for 
settlement of a lot of these issues regarding tobacco will not 
recommend to us to excuse and forgive the tobacco companies for any 
actions they may have undertaken that would amount to punitive damages 
before we know fully what actions they have been engaged in. What we do 
know is that for four decades they have acted in a way that we would 
never accept from any other business or corporation in this country. 
They have manufactured a product and sold it knowing it is harmful and 
claiming the contrary to be true. They have sold a product that is 
addictive, and they knew that to be the case, and they denied it. They 
were targeting our kids, and then they denied it. What are punitive 
damages all about except to punish people who have acted wrongly? And 
if the tobacco industry has not acted wrongly in these last four 
decades, what industry could possibly be accused of acting more 
wrongly?
  I hope they do not come back and recommend to us that we forgive the 
tobacco industry for their wrongdoing and not hold them accountable if 
in fact punitive damages are warranted.

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