Testimony is starting today in St. Louis in a $1 billion dollar lawsuit against the Philip Morris tobacco company. It’s a class-action suit that charges the company claimed light cigarettes were safer than regular cigarettes when they were not. The suit says about 700 million packs of Marlboro Lights were sold in Missouri in the eight years covered by the suit.
The trial is expected to last until about Thanksgiving.
Earlier this year a St. Louis jury ruled in favor of tobacco companies that had been sued by hospitals asking to recover the costs of treating smokers’ ailments.