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Cornered: Big Tobacco At the Bar of Justice
Cornered Big Tobacco At the Bar of Justice Author:Peter Pringle How the law's "junkyard dogs" forced the biggest liability settlement in U.S. business history and laid bare unprecedented corporate fraud. It began in New Orleans with the lung-cancer death of a small-time lawyer. It began in Kentucky when a $9-an-hour law clerk stole three boxes of incriminating company documents. It began in Mississippi as an... more » outraged country lawyer discovered the costs of cancer care. And it began in Washington as a pediatrician-turned-agency head decided to end tobacco's 90-year immunity from regulation. Suddenly, an untouchable industry was under siege. And in the vanguard of the attack: a consortium of the nation's toughest liability lawyers led by the best friend of that small-time New Orleans attorney. Three years and 33 million documents later, Big Tobacco had been cornered. Though the $369 billion they have offered to buy peace has been attacked as "too little, too late," it represents a capitulation of monumental proportions. Cornered is the first full account of this unprecedented battle. Dramatic, funny, enraging, it offers the ultimate proof that you can fight city hall.« less