RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A federal judge won't delay a decision in a 12-year-old lawsuit against the tobacco industry while other cases challenging new tobacco regulations are decided.
U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler in Washington on Thursday said in an opinion that she won't wait to make a ruling in the case in which America's largest cigarette makers were found to have concealed the dangers of smoking for decades.
She will decide on corrective statements the companies must make, and if they should pay for critical ads about themselves proposed by the Justice Department.
Kessler had asked the parties in November whether they thought she should delay her decision pending other lawsuits challenging marketing restrictions and new cigarette warning labels the Food and Drug Administration has proposed under authority it gained in 2009.
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