Opinion ID: 2585
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Disposition of the City's State Law Claims

Text: In January and February 2005, the District Court dismissed all of the City's state law claims for substantially the same reasons in each case in which the claims were alleged. See Nexicon, 383 F.Supp.2d 526 (S.D.N.Y. 2005); Smokes-Spirits, No. 04 Civ. 6616 (S.D.N.Y. Feb.8, 2005); NCCigarettes, No. 03 Civ. 7715, 2005 WL 3782442, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2794 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 9, 2005); EZTobacco, No. 03 Civ. 10091, 2005 WL 372044, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2202 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 16, 2005). [13] The District Court dismissed the common law fraud claims on the grounds that the City had not alleged that it relied on any of the allegedly fraudulent statements or omissions, and that any third-party relianceeither on the part of the consumers or the Statewas not sufficient to state a claim. See Nexicon, 383 F.Supp.2d at 565. The District Court dismissed the City's GBL § 349 claims on the ground that the failure to file Jenkins Act reports could not, as a matter of law, mislead consumers. See id. at 562-63. The District Court then found that the City had failed to allege a consumer injury or harm to the public interest even as to those defendants alleged by the City to have made material misrepresentations directed at consumers, in the form of statements that defendants' cigarettes are tax free or that defendants did not have to file Jenkins Act reports. The District Court dismissed the argument that lost tax revenues injure all citizens on the ground that such an injury was too indirect. See id. at 564. The District Court also dismissed the public nuisance claims, finding that the number of cigarette sales over the Internet was small . . . compared to brick and mortar sales and that plaintiffs had not alleged a harm that endangers[ ] the public at large. NCCigarettes, 2005 WL 3782442, at , 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2794, at -10. The District Court found that it was unclear that the number of people who purchase cigarettes over the Internet qualifies as a considerable number of people and concluded that the City's allegation that Internet sales of cigarettes were predicted to account for 5.9% of industry volume in 2005 did not comport with the required considerable number of persons. Id. at , 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2794, at  (internal quotation marks omitted). [14]