The New York Court of Appeals today said that New York law does not
allow for an independent cause of action for medical monitoring. The
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit asked the state’s highest
court to decide whether current or former long-term smokers who have no
sign of disease can pursue an independent claim against a tobacco
company to establish a medical monitoring program.
"We believe that the New York Court of Appeals correctly held that there
is no basis under the law that supports creating a medical monitoring
claim,” said Murray Garnick, Altria Client Services senior vice
president and associate general counsel, speaking on behalf of Philip
Morris USA. “In so ruling, the New York Court of Appeals has joined with
many courts throughout the country in rejecting such a sweeping new
cause of action.”
In its decision, the court said, “Allowance of such a claim, absent any
evidence of present physical injury or damage to property, would
constitute a significant deviation from our tort jurisprudence.”
In declining to create a new cause of action, the court expressed
serious concerns about the “potential systemic effects of creating a
new, full-blown tort law cause of action.” The court concluded that
creating a medical monitoring cause of action could result in
“effectively flooding the courts” and noted that “there is no framework
concerning how such a medical monitoring program would be implemented
and administered.”
In 2011, a federal district court ruled that there was no legal basis
for claims made by plaintiffs in Caronia requesting that the
company pay for annual low-dose CT scans for long-term smokers to
determine whether they have lung cancer. The trial court dismissed the
lawsuit finding that plaintiffs' claims were legally invalid.
This case is Caronia v. Philip Morris USA, Inc.
Copyright Business Wire 2013