Opinion ID: 2588284
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Whether the Immunity Statute Precludes Recovery for Defendants' Conduct Before the Immunity Period

Text: Plaintiff began smoking cigarettes in 1956 and continued to do so until 1997, a period of 41 years. For 10 years of this periodfrom January 1,1988, through December 31, 1997the Immunity Statute was in effect to shield tobacco companies from liability for personal injuries that their tobacco products caused to voluntary consumers. Because, as explained above, the Repeal Statute is not retroactive, plaintiff has no product liability claim against defendant tobacco companies for their conduct in manufacturing and distributing cigarettes during the statutory immunity period. Regarding the portion of plaintiffs claim attributable to her use of cigarettes that defendant tobacco companies manufactured or distributed before the period of statutory immunity afforded those companies, defendants contend that the Immunity Statute shields them from liability. In support, they point out that the statute was expressly retroactive, covering during its effective period all product liability actions pending on, or commenced after, January 1, 1988 (former § 1714.45, subd. (c), added by Stats. 1987, ch. 1498, § 3, p. 5779), whereas (as we hold here) the Repeal Statute was not retroactive and thus could not remove any of the protection conferred by the Immunity Statute. We reject defendants' contention. Although the Repeal Statute has no retroactive effect, it nonetheless removed the protection that the Immunity Statute gave to tobacco companies for their conduct occurring before the Immunity Statute's effective date. This is so because a retroactive effect is one that impair[s] rights a party possessed when he acted. ( Landgraf v. USI Film Products, supra, 511 U.S. at p. 280, 114 S.Ct. 1483, italics added.) The Repeal Statute did not impair any rights that tobacco companies possessed before the immunity period. On the contrary, by abrogating the Immunity Statute, the Repeal Statute restored the law governing product liability for the manufacture or sale of tobacco products to what it had been before the January 1, 1988, effective date of the Immunity Statute. Before January 1, 1988, general tort principles defined the extent of any tort liability that tobacco companies might have for manufacturing or distributing their tobacco products for sale to voluntary consumers. When, years later, the California Legislature repealed the statutory immunity for tobacco manufacturers in product liability actions, it reinstated those general tort rules. This repeal did not change the legal consequences ( Apfel, supra, 524 U.S. at p. 548, 118 S.Ct. 2131) of defendants' conduct in manufacturing or distributing tobacco products before the effective date of the immunity. Nor could defendants reasonably have relied upon the Immunity Statute before its enactment. (See In re Marriage of Buol (1985) 39 Cal.3d 751, 761, 218 Cal.Rptr. 31, 705 P.2d 354.) Accordingly, repeal of the Immunity Statute eliminated any retroactive effect it may have had, so that the tort liability, if any, that defendants could incur for their conduct before the effective date of the Immunity Statute is determined by applying general tort principles.