Castano v. American Tobacco Co

84 F.3d 734 (5th Cir. 1996)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

This was a class action suit filed against various tobacco companies seeking compensation for the injury of nicotine addiction. The claim was that the defendants fraudulently failed to inform consumers that nicotine was addictive and that they manipulated the level of nicotine in cigarettes to insure that the cigarettes were addictive from the nicotine in them. The district court defined the class as all nicotine dependent parties in the United States who had purchased and smoked cigarettes from D. The class also included the relatives and estates of those smokers as well. The district court certified the class under 23(b)(3) and organized the class into four issues; (1) core liability, (2) injury, in fact, proximate cause, reliance, and affirmative defenses, (3) compensatory damages, (4) punitive damages. The class was then certified on core liability, and punitive damages, and certified the class according to 23(c)(1). D appealed contending that the district court abused its discretion in certifying the class by failing to conduct an adequate inquiry into the issues of predominance and superiority.