From butts to Big Macs--can the Big Tobacco litigation and nation-wise settlement with states' attorneys general serve as a model for attacking the fast food industry?

In 1998, after decades of litigation, the major tobacco companies negotiated a settlement reimbursing the Medicare expenses that forty-six states incurred to treat citizens suffering from the adverse effects of smoking. This settlement, as well as its preceding litigation, introduced a new method through which unpopular industries could be persuaded, if not forced, to change their business practices as well as garner impressive fees for attorneys. Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, best termed this new era of attacking unpopular industries as “regulation through litigation.” That is, the plaintiffs’ bar, perhaps