Opinion ID: 1443950
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The advertisements do refer to persons by business affiliations, to tobacco companies collectively, or to Lorillard.

Text: Subsection VI(h) of the MSA refers to a personal attack on or vilification of a person, company or governmental agency. If the ad does not refer to a person, company, or governmental agency, the prohibition cannot apply. Here, the ads do refer to a person or company, either individually or collectively. We disagree with the Vice Chancellor's conclusion that they do not. In the Shredder and Lie Detector ads, the settings were expressly outside and inside a major tobacco company. In Hypnosis, one of the youths refers to these tobacco guys in a setting somewhere in tobacco suburbia. In Lie Detector, the youths repeatedly ask for an individual employee by what sounds like her first name, audible in the ad. In Dog Walker, a woman answers Good afternoon, Lorillard, and the caller explains to the Lorillard employee that you tobacco people put urea, a chemical found in dog urine, into cigarettes; the announcer concludes saying, Truth exposes the tobacco industry's deceptions. . . . We agree with Lorillard that ALF's advertisements expressly and impliedly referred to specific companies, the collective tobacco companies, and in one case, to a specific employee by name. The headquarters of Phillip Morris appears in two of the ads. When the evidence is viewed in a light most favorable to the non-moving party as is required on summary judgment, we conclude that advertisements of the truth® campaign did refer to a person (whether by name or business affiliation), tobacco companies collectively, and in one instance to Lorillard. Since they did, we must determine if the ads are personal attacks or vilification in violation of the MSA. If they are not, we must affirm the Vice Chancellor's ultimate conclusion that the ads do not violate Subsection VI(h) of the MSA.