Opinion ID: 744751
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Based on Smoking and Health

Text: 59 We think it clear that the obligations imposed by the Disclosure Act are based on smoking and health, and the Commonwealth does not dispute this position. The law's stated purpose, [f]or the purpose of protecting the public health, and the accompanying text strongly imply that its anticipated effect will be greater public awareness about the additives and nicotine in tobacco products and the potential health effects of those ingredients. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 94, § 307B. The Disclosure Act, therefore, bears the requisite relationship to smoking and health within the meaning of § 1334(b). See Vango Media, 34 F.3d at 73 (finding city ordinance requiring display of public health messages about health risks of smoking was based on smoking and health because both its purpose and effect centered on such risks); Lacey v. Lorillard Tobacco Co., 956 F.Supp. 956, 962 (N.D.Ala.1997) (stating that a list of ingredients in cigarettes would most likely be material only as it related to the health of a plaintiff); Cf. Griesenbeck v. American Tobacco Co., 897 F.Supp. 815, 823 (D.N.J.1995) (finding that threat of self-immolation arising from the negligent care of one's cigarette is a 'health risk'  bearing the requisite relationship to smoking and health). 60 Courts have found the requisite link to smoking and health lacking where the predicate duty was a more general obligation, for example, the duty not to deceive, Cipollone, 505 U.S. at 528-29, 112 S.Ct. at 2623-24 (plurality), the duty not to conspire to commit fraud, id. at 530, 112 S.Ct. at 2624 (plurality), and the duty to not engage in unfair competition by advertising illegal conduct or encouraging others to violate the law, Mangini v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 7 Cal.4th 1057, 31 Cal.Rptr.2d 358, 875 P.2d 73, 80 (1994) (involving claim that cigarette manufacturer's Old Joe Camel advertising campaign targets minors for the purpose of inducing and increasing their illegal purchases of cigarettes). Cf. Lohr, --- U.S. at ----, 116 S.Ct. at 2258 (finding that plaintiffs' negligent manufacturing claim was predicated on the general duty of every manufacturer to use due care to avoid foreseeable dangers in its products and thus, the state common-law requirements were not with respect to medical devices). 61 Here, the Commonwealth does not argue that the Disclosure Act imposes an obligation so general as to take it out of the smoking-and-health nexus of § 1334(b). While the argument could be made that the Disclosure Act predicates its obligations upon the general duty to follow state statutory reporting requirements rather than state-considerations that are based on smoking and health, we think such an argument impermissibly raises the level of generality of the inquiry. The logical extension of this argument would be that all obligations stemming from state positive-enactments are predicated on the general duty to abide by state law, thus bringing every such requirement outside the scope of the preemption clause even if it squarely involved otherwise preempted matters. Cf. Cipollone, 505 U.S. at 543, 112 S.Ct. at 2631 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part, dissenting in part) (criticizing plurality's frequent shift in the level of generality at which it examines the individual claims). 62