Careful studies suggest that smokers, considering their shorter life spans and the cigarette taxes they already paid, more than covered their costs. Still, the tobacco industry agreed to settle. One reason is that its prospects in court were poor, because the rules were twisted against it. In Mississippi, the case was filed in an obscure court, where a sympathetic local judge regularly ruled against the industry. Only a moron won't glimpse the dangers.
Trial lawyers are huge political donors.
Taken to its logical conclusion, this process makes the court system a wholly owned subsidiary of trial lawyers. Congress could frustrate this subversion by imposing a punitive tax on lawyers' earnings. This is not as outlandish as it seems. Few lawyers would actually suffer. If a case took years, rules could permit victorious lawyers to earn up to the cap for each year.