Harris v. Owens

EBEL, Circuit Judge.

In recent years society has begun to recognize smoking as an important public-health issue. The historic 1998 agreement between most of the states and the major tobacco companies was a milestone in the ongoing attempt to address this issue. As part of a broad settlement of the states’ claims, the tobacco companies agreed to pay over time hundreds of billions of dollars to the states. In view of the enormous amount of money at stake, it is perhaps not surprising that there has been considerable controversy about the status of the settlement funds.

In this case, a recipient…