Big Tobacco is trying to snuff out Baltimore’s ambitious lawsuit over cigarette litter by leaning on a deal struck back in the late 1990s.
In a high-stakes legal fight over what the city calls “toxic litter,” major tobacco manufacturers have asked a Baltimore judge to toss the city’s first-of-its-kind pollution case, arguing that a nearly 30-year-old national settlement shields them from liability. The companies say the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, or MSA, blocks Baltimore from pursuing its claims about cigarette filters and microplastics. City lawyers have fired back with a cross-motion, insisting the case is about environmental damage, not the health-care reimbursement claims that the settlement resolved.
Companies claim broad immunity
In a motion for summary judgment filed last month, several tobacco companies argued that the Master Settlement Agreement prevents Baltimore from suing over pollution caused by discarded cigarette butts, asserting that the settlement’s release language sweeps in the city’s claims, as reported by The Daily Record. Industry lawyers say Maryland’s long-standing participation in the settlement and its ongoing payments show the state, along with its subdivisions, released related claims. Their filings characterize the MSA language as “broad” and contend it should shut down new litigation of this kind before it ever reaches a jury.
City pushes back
Baltimore answered with a cross-motion that tries to narrow the battlefield. The city argues the settlement was about recovering health-care costs tied to smoking-related illness, not giving tobacco companies a permanent free pass on other harms.
“Defendants fail in their misleading attempt to reframe the (settlement) as a global immunity agreement for all harms flowing from cigarettes,” the city’s filing said, as reported by The Daily Record. The city also maintains that biodegradable filter alternatives exist and that manufacturers knew the commonly used filters contain non-biodegradable plastics that end up on city streets and in local waterways.
The suit and the cleanup tally
Baltimore first filed the complaint in November 2022, alleging that widely used cellulose-acetate cigarette filters are not biodegradable and instead leach microplastics into the environment. The Baltimore City Law Department says the city spends more than $5 million a year removing cigarette filters from streets and waterways, according to a city press release…