The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to consider the case of three small cigarette companies trying to avoid making payments to 30 state governments that reached a huge financial settlement with the giants of the tobacco industry.
After the settlement eight years ago in which the four biggest tobacco companies paid $206 billion, each of the 30 states passed a law requiring companies that didn’t participate to pay money into escrow funds to satisfy future damage awards in cigarette-related lawsuits.
