Saturday, March 11, 2000
More burley farmers join tobacco lawsuit
Companies accused of anti-trust violations
The Associated Press
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Bluegrass burley growers are adding their names to a national lawsuit that a Washington attorney has filed against cigarette makers.
The attorney, Alexander Pires Jr., is seeking damages from Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Louisville-based Brown & Williamson and Lorillard on behalf of farmers who have lost millions in the wake of the tobacco settlement with the states.
The suit alleges that the companies, through massive cuts in the amount of U.S. tobacco they buy, have defrauded growers and violated anti-trust laws in attempting to break the federal program that sets tobacco prices.
Mr. Pires addressed about 150 people who attended a meeting Thursday night, one of five held this week around the state. At least 30 joined the fight and others took the application home to weigh the decision to sign up, which would cost them $100 and 5 percent of any winnings from the suit.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Pires spoke at a meeting in Maysville. Among those attending were Edward and Esther Rearden of Ashland. They hold a small tobacco allotment on a farm in Elliott County.
Mrs. Rearden said she and her husband think the tobacco companies are conspiring to keep money out of farmers' hands by slowly taking away their market.
“I'm behind it,” Mr. Rearden said of the suit. “For the government to say it's about health ... they don't fool me. It's about shipping tobacco in here from foreign countries. It's terrible.”
There were 4,010 original plaintiffs in the suit filed Feb. 16 in Washington's U.S. District Count, and Mr. Pires said the total has reached 4,347.
In Lexington, Mr. Pires said the suit would garner $23 billion over three years for Kentucky farmers to make up for quota cuts since 1997.
Farmers have been left with only about a third of their quotas, which determine the amount of tobacco they can sell. If the suit is successful, the farmers could get $12 a pound for every pound of quota they had in 1997 — $8 for those who owned quota and $4 for those who grew leased pounds.
That convinced Scott and Donald Essex, brothers who grow burley in Marion County. Together, they say, they have lost more than $80,000 on quota they bought before the 1997 growing season.
“We put everything we had into tobacco because Philip Morris told us: “"You can't grow enough,'” Scott Essex said.
Scott Essex said he got enough to cover only about 10 percent of his losses out of the $5.15 billion Phase Two fund, set up by the companies to compensate farmers for losses from the settlement.
The Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative has remained neutral on the lawsuit.
Madison County grower Eddie Warren, who is on the co-op board, said he will not be joining the suit because he doesn't feel it would be morally right after prospering for so many years from the relationship with the companies.
“They've given me a living all my life,” Warren said. “I just don't think I could sue them.”
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