Also hurting the plaintiff's case, according to Campagnino and others, was the lack of similar damages across the population of light cigarette purchasers, making class action status difficult.
Cigarette firms have long argued that class action lawsuits are inappropriate in smoking and health cases, because not all victims of smoking-related illnesses can be assumed to have had the same appreciation of the risks involved in consuming tobacco.
Judges in 11 of 13 other cases have rejected similar attempts to put together a class that would almost certainly force cigarette makers into a multibillion-dollar settlement.