Cigarette makers must pay $424 million to tobacco growers in 14 states as part of an agreement reached in the wake of 1998′s multibillion-dollar anti-smoking settlement, North Carolina’s Supreme Court ruled Friday.
The ruling reversed a decision by a lower court judge who sided with cigarette companies in finding the tobacco-quota buyout approved by Congress last year ended their obligation to make the payments. Under the buyout, the United States agreed to pay tobacco growers — and holders of licenses or “quotas” to grow tobacco — $10.1 billion to end price supports begun in the 1930s.
