Gladys Kessler, Judge Who Curbed Deceptive Tobacco Ads, Dies at 85

She ordered the tobacco companies to stop labeling cigarettes as “low tar,” “light,” “natural” or with any descriptive label that would make cigarettes appear less harmful; create a public archive of industry documents that detailed their decades-long deceptions; and publicize “corrective” statements in newspapers and on television about the harmful effects of smoking.

Those messages, which did not start appearing until 2017 after years of appeals in court, included, among many others, “Smoking kills, on average, 1,200 Americans. Every day,” and “Smoking causes heart disease, emphysema, acute myeloid leukemia and cancer of the mouth, esophagus, larynx, lung, stomach, kidney, bladder, and pancreas.”

Those messages, which had appeared in television commercials and newspaper ads, are to be posted on signs in retail stores later this year.

But a prospective preamble to the statements that said the companies had “deliberately deceived the American public” was struck down by an appeals court in 2015.

Judge Kessler was also limited by an appeals court ruling from imposing at least $289 billion in financial remedies on the defendants, which included Philip Morris USA and its parent, Altria Group; R.J. Reynolds; and Brown Williamson.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/27/us/gladys-kessler-dead.html