Judge Gladys Kessler’s scorn for the tobacco industry was evident in her 1,742-page opinion last week, which found that nine cigarette manufacturers and two trade groups had conspired to hide the truth about smoking’s adverse health consequences for more than 50 years.
Her wrath, though, was directed not only at company executives at the forefront of the multibillion-dollar tobacco industry but also at the lawyers she said aided the decades-long project to illegally shade the industry from scrutiny.
