Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T20:28:30.878Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Theorizing about Trial Courts: Lawyers, Policymaking, and Tobacco Litigation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Lynn Mather
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

What role do litigation and trial court decisions play in shaping policy? This article explores that question by examining recent litigation against tobacco manufacturers filed by state attorneys general, plaintiff lawyers in class actions, lawyers for cities, unions, health plans, individual smokers, and others. I suggest how this litigation contributed to agenda setting, new ways of defining the problem of tobacco and the policy alternatives, political mobilization, new legal norms, and new political and legal resources for opponents of tobacco. Addressing theoretical debates about the power of the courts to effect change, I distinguish between causal and constitutive arguments and suggest how both can be incorporated in social analysis.

Type
Symposium: Special Issue in Honor of Herbert Jacob
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , Fall 1998 , pp. 897 - 940
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 1998 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, Anne Wallace. 1997. Vt. Suit Targets Tobacco Industry. Valley News, 30 May, A1.Google Scholar
Bailey, Steve, and Syre, Stephen. 1998. Fidelity May Be Kicking Its Tobacco Habit. Boston Globe, 4 September, C4.Google Scholar
Barboza, David. 1997. Asking a Lawyer to Lift Tobacco's Haze. New York Times, 4 May, F3.Google Scholar
Baumgartner, Frank R., and Jones, Bryan D. 1993. Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bennett, W. Lance 1993. Constructing Publics and Their Opinions. Political Communication 10:101–20.Google Scholar
Biskupic, Joan. 1998. Despite Ruling, Bans on Secondhand Smoke Will Remain. Valley News, 20 July.Google Scholar
Brigham, John. 1996. The Constitution of Interests: Beyond the Politics of Rights. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Brodeur, Paul 1985. Outrageous Misconduct: The Asbestos Industry on Trial. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Canan, Penelope, and Pring, George W. 1988. Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation. Social Problems 35:506–19.Google Scholar
Casper, Jonathan D. 1976. The Supreme Court and National Policy-Making. American Political Science Review 70:50–63.Google Scholar
Clayton, Cornell. 1994. Law, Politics and the New Federalism: State Attorneys General as Policymakers. Review of Politics 56:525–54.Google Scholar
Cobb, Roger W., and Elder, Charles D. 1983. Participation in American Politics: The Dynamics of Agenda-Building. 2d ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Collins, Glenn. 1994. Legal Titans Square off in Big Tobacco Lawsuit. New York Times, 15 December, D2.Google Scholar
Collins, Glenn. 1995. Big Publicity Effort Seen in Tobacco Class Action. New York Times, 9 March, D2.Google Scholar
Collins, Glenn. 1996. Disputed Documents Could be Used in Class-Action Suit against Tobacco Companies. New York Times, 10 April, B7.Google Scholar
Cross, Charles. 1991. Explanation and the Theory of Questions. Erkenntnis 34:237–60.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert. 1957. Decision-Making in a Democracy: The Supreme Court as a National Policy Maker. Journal of Public Law 6:279–95.Google Scholar
Davis, Ann. 1998a. B.A.T. Unit Loses Suit by Smoker's Kin. Wall Street Journal, 11 June, A3.Google Scholar
Davis, Ann. 1998b. Verdict against Cigarette Maker for $1 Million Appears Invalidated. Wall Street Journal, 14 August, B7.Google Scholar
Daynard, Richard A. 1988. Tobacco Liability Litigation as a Cancer Control Strategy. Journal of the National Cancer Institute 80 (March): 9–13.Google Scholar
Daynard, Richard A. 1994. The Third Wave of Tobacco Products Liability Cases. Trial 30:34–40.Google Scholar
Edelman, Murray. 1988. Constructing the Political Spectacle. Chicago: University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Eisenstein, James and Herbert, Jacob. 1977. Felony Justice: An Organizational Analysis of Criminal Courts. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Elkind, Peter. 1997. Big Tobacco's Next Can of Worms: When Woody Wilner Wins, Cigarette Investors Quake. Fortune, 26 May, 23.Google Scholar
Epstein, Lee, and Knight, Jack. 1997. The New Institutionalism, Part II. Law and Courts 7 (Spring): 4–9.Google Scholar
Feeley, Malcolm. 1992. Hollow Hopes, Flypaper, and Metaphors. Law and Social Inquiry 17:745–60.Google Scholar
Felstiner, William L. F., Abel, Richard L., and Sarat, Austin. 19801981. The Emergence and Transformation of Disputes: Naming, Blaming, Claiming Law and Society Review 15:631–54.Google Scholar
Flemming, Roy B., Bohte, John, and Wood, B. Dan 1997. One Voice among Many: The Supreme Court's Influence on Attentiveness to Issues in the United States, 1947–1992 American Journal of Political Science 41:1224–50.Google Scholar
Freedman, Alix M., and Hwang, Suein L. 1997. How Seven Individuals with Diverse Motives Halted Tobacco's Wars. Wall Street Journal, 11 July, A1.Google Scholar
Fridy, Mark D. 1996. How the Tobacco Industry May Pay for Public Health Care Expenditures Caused by Smoking: A Look at the Next Wave of Suits against the Tobacco Industry. Indiana Law Journal, 72:235–57.Google Scholar
Fritschler, Lee A., and Hoefler, James M. 1996. Smoking and Politics. 5th ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc. 1974. Why the “Haves” Come out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change. Law and Society Review 9:95–160.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc. 1983. The Radiating Effects of Courts. In Empirical Theories about Courts, ed. Boyum, Keith O. and Mather, Lynn. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc. 1990. Case Congregations and Their Careers. Law and Society Review 24:371–95.Google Scholar
Garth, Bryant G. 1992. Power and Legal Artifice: The Federal Class Action. Law and Society Review 26:237–72.Google Scholar
Geyelin, Milo. 1998. Blowing Smoke: Cigarette Maker Taunts Lawyers in Ad Campaign. Wall Street Journal, 20 October, B1.Google Scholar
Geyelin, Milo, and Hwang, Suein L. 1997. What Brought Big Tobacco to the Table. Wall Street Journal, 18 April, B1.Google Scholar
Gillman, Howard 19961997. The New Institutionalism, Part I. Law and Courts 7 (Winter): 7–11.Google Scholar
Glantz, Stanton A., John, Slade, Bero, Lisa A., Peter, Hanauer, and Barnes, Deborah. 1996. The Cigarette Papers. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Carey. 1997. Ridding Town of Ali Tobacco Is Goal of Massachusetts Man. New York Times, 12 October, 1.Google Scholar
Greenhouse, Linda. 1992. The Supreme Court: Court Opens Way for Damage Suits over Cigarettes. New York Times, 25 June, A1.Google Scholar
Hakom, William. 1998. Reporting on the Courts. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.Google Scholar
Hansen, Mark. 1997. Capitol Offensives. ABA Journal 83:50–56.Google Scholar
Harrington, Christine B. 1994. Outlining a Theory of Legal Practice. In Lawyers in a Postmodern World, ed. Cain, Maureen and Harrington, Christine B. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Harrington, Christine B., and Barbara, Yngvesson. 1989. Interpretive Sociolegal Research. Law and Social Inquiry 15:135–48.Google Scholar
Isaac, Jeffrey C. 1987. Beyond the Three Faces of Power: A Realist Critique. Polity 20:4–31.Google Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto. 1991. Is Anyone Responsible? Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jacob, Herbert. 1965. Justice in America, 1st ed. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Jacob, Herbert. 1988. Silent Revolution: The Transformation of Divorce Law in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jacob, Herbert. 1992. The Elusive Shadow of the Law. Law and Society Review 26:565–90.Google Scholar
Jacob, Herbert. 1996. Courts and Politics in the United States. In Courts Law and Politics in Comparative Perspective, ed. Jacob, Herbert, Erhard Blankenburg, Herbert Kritzer M., Provine, Doris Marie, and Sanders, Joseph. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Jacob, Herbert. 1997. The Governance of Trial Judges. Law and Society Review 31:3–30.Google Scholar
Just, Peter. 1992. History, Power, Ideology, and Culture: Current Directions in the Anthropology of Law. Law and Society Review 26:373–412.Google Scholar
Kagan, Robert A., and Vogel, David. 1993. The Politics of Smoking Regulation: Canada, France, and the United States. In Rabin and Sugarman 1993.Google Scholar
Kelder, Graham E., and Daynard, Richard A. 1996. Tobacco Litigation as a Public Health and Cancer Control Strategy. Journal of the American Medical Women's Association 51:57–62.Google Scholar
Kelder, Graham E., and Daynard, Richard A. 1997. The Role of Litigation in the Effective Control of the Sale and Use of Tobacco. Stanford Law and Policy Review 8:63–98.Google Scholar
King, Gary, Keohane, Robert O., and Verba, Sidney. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kingdon, John W. 1984. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Kluger, Richard. 1997. Ashes to Ashes. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Levi, Edward H. 1949. An Introduction to Legal Reasoning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Levin, Myron. 1996. As Tobacco Litigation Goes, Castano Suit Is Super Bowl. Los Angeles Times, 22 May, A1.Google Scholar
Levin, Myron, and Stolberg, Sheryl. 1997. Tobacco Company Admits Smoking Leads to Cancer. Los Angeles Times, 21 March, A1.Google Scholar
Lisberg, Adam. 1997. Vermont Files Suit against Tobacco Firms. Burlington Free Press, 30 May, A1.Google Scholar
Little, Daniel. 1991. Varieties of Social Explanation: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Social Science. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Lukes, Steven. 1974. Power: A Radical View. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
McCann, Michael. 1992 Reform Litigation on Trial. Law and Social Inquiry 17:715–43.Google Scholar
McCann, Michael. 1994. Rights at Work. Chicago: University of Chicago.Google Scholar
McCann, Michael. 1996. Causal versus Constitutive Explanations. Law and Social Inquiry 21:457–82.Google Scholar
McCann, Michael. 1998. How the Supreme Court Matters in American Politics: New Institutionalist Perspectives. In The Supreme Court and American Politics: New Institutionalist Approaches, ed. Clayton, Cornell and Gillman, Howard. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press.Google Scholar
Mansnerus, Laura. 1996. Making a Case for Death. New York Times, 5 May, sec. 4, 1.Google Scholar
Mather, Lynn. 1982. Conclusion: The Mobilizing Potential of Class Actions. Indiana Law Journal 57:451–58.Google Scholar
Mather, Lynn. 1995. The Fired Football Coach (or, How Trial Courts Make Policy). In Contemplating Courts, ed. Epstein, Lee. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly.Google Scholar
Mather, Lynn, and Yngvesson, Barbara. 19801981. Language, Audience, and the Transformation of Disputes. Law and Society Review 15:775–821.Google Scholar
Meade, Karen E. 1996. Breaking through the Tobacco Industry's Smoke Screen. Journal of Legal Medicine 17:113–41.Google Scholar
Meier, Barry. 1998. Tobacco Bill's Death Is Likely to Prompt Litigation Landslide. New York Times, 19 June, A24.Google Scholar
Mertz, Elizabeth. 1994. A New Social Constructionism for Sociolegal Studies. Law and Society Review 28:1243–65.Google Scholar
Monroe, Kristen Renwick, ed. 1997. Contemporary Empirical Political Theory. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Moore, Mike. 1997. The States Are Just Trying to Take Care of Sick Citizens and Protect Children. ABA Journal 83:53.Google Scholar
Nelson, Thomas E., Clawson, Rosalee A., and Oxley, Zoe M. 1997. Media Framing of a Civil Liberties Conflict and Its Effect on Tolerance. American Political Science Review 91:567–83.Google Scholar
Peltason, Jack. 1955. Federal Courts in the Political Process. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Peltason, Jack. 1961. Fifty-Eight Lonely Men: Southern Federal Judges and School Desegregation. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.Google Scholar
Pettigrew-Kraft, Beverly. 1994 Key Tobacco Case Reaches Court in Mississippi. Reuter Business Report, 18 December.Google Scholar
Pringle, Peter. 1998. Cornered: Big Tobacco at the Bar of Justice. New York: Henry Holt.Google Scholar
Rabin, Robert L. 1993. Institutional and Historical Perspectives on Tobacco Tort Liability. In Rabin and Sugarman 1993.Google Scholar
Rabin, Robert L., and Sugarman, Stephen D., eds. 1993. Smoking Policy: Law, Politics, and Culture. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rice, Robert. 1995. Business and the Law: When Your Health Goes up in Smoke. Financial Times, 7 February, 12.Google Scholar
Rosenbaum, David. 1998. When No Means Yes, and Vice Versa. New York Times, 19 April, 5.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Gerald. 1991. The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring about Social Change? Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Gerald. 1992. Hollow Hopes and Other Aspirations: A Reply to Feeley and McCann. Law and Social Inquiry 17:761–78.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Gerald. 1996. Positivism, Interpretivism, and the Study of Law. Law and Social Inquiry 21:435–56.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Gerald. 1998 Knowledge and Desire: Thinking about Courts and Social Change. In Schultz 1998.Google Scholar
Sack, Kevin. 1997. For the Nation's Politicians, Big Tobacco No Longer Bites. New York Times, 22 April, A1.Google Scholar
Sarat, Austin, and Kearns, Thomas R. 1993. Beyond the Great Divide: Forms of Legal Scholarship and Everyday Life. In Law in Everyday Life, ed. Sarat, Austin and Kearns, Thomas R. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Sarat, Austin, and Scheingold, Stuart. 1998. Cause Lawyering: Political Commitments and Professional Responsibilities. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schattschneider, E. E. 1960. The Semisovereign Peopl. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Scheingold, Stuart A. 1974- The Polities of Rights: Lawyers, Public Policy, and Political Change. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Schultz, David A., ed. 1998. Leveraging the Law: Using the Courts to Achieve Social Change. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Gary T. 1993. Tobacco Liability in the Courts. In Rabin and Sugarman 1993.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. 1995. Why I Am an Historical Institutionalist. Polity 28:103–6.Google Scholar
Smith, Rogers. 1995. Ideas, Institutions, and Strategic Choice. Polity 28:135–40.Google Scholar
Stolberg, Sheryl Gay. 1997. Wary of Big Steps, U.S. Isn't Moving to Curb Tobacco. New York Times, 2 May, A1.Google Scholar
Stone, Deborah A. 1997. Policy Paradox. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Sullum, Jacob. 1998. For Your Own Good: The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1999a. On Constitution and Causation in International Relations. Review of International Studies. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1999b. Social Theory of International Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Zimring, Franklin E. 1993. Comparing Cigarette Policy and Illicit Drug and Alcohol Control. In Rabin and Sugarman 1993.Google Scholar