Court Opinion

ID: 9677104
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:43:33.45498+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:18:52.438535
License: Public Domain

PAGE, Justice
(concurring specially).
While I concur in the result reached by the court, I write separately to make two points.
First, the state’s 1994 litigation against the major tobacco manufacturers was premised on the notion that the tobacco industry — “not the State of Minnesota, or its citizens” — should pay for the health care costs caused by tobacco use. Despite this premise, nothing in the 1998 settlement agreement between the state and respondents required respondents themselves to bear the cost of the settlement. Indeed, as we observed in Council of Independent Tobacco Manufacturers of America v. State, the manufacturers simply raised their prices to cover the cost of the settlement. 713 N.W.2d 300, 303-304, 2006 WL 648137, at *2 (Minn. Mar. 16, 2006). As a result, while the state has collected hundreds of millions of dollars in annual payments from tobacco companies thus far under the terms of the 1998 set*366tlement agreement, the lion’s share — perhaps all — of the cost of that settlement has actually been borne by smokers.
It also appears that, despite the premise of the 1994 litigation that tobacco companies should pay for the health effects of their products, none of the proceeds from the tobacco settlement have been used to pay for smoking-related health care costs. See Act of May 25, 1999, ch. 243, art. 16, § 3(b), 1999 Minn. Laws 2055, 2243 (specifying that annual tobacco settlement payments go to the state’s general fund). Indeed, in 2003, the one-time settlement payments designated in 1999 by the legislature for tobacco use prevention and medical education were transferred to the state’s general fund. See Act of June 8, 2003, ch. 21, art. 11, § 33, 2003 Minn. Laws 1st Spec. Sess. 2418, 2560; Act of May 25, 1999, ch. 245, art. 11, §§ 1-3, 1999 Minn. Laws 2264, 2672.
Now, with the imposition of the Health Impact Fee and the pass-through of that fee/tax to the consumer, smokers are once again paying for the state’s smoking-related health care costs — the same costs one could reasonably have hoped were being paid for by the tobacco companies through the 1998 settlement. On the record before us, it cannot be determined whether the settlement payments, combined with the Health Impact Fee, exceed the state’s smoking-related health care costs. But, to the extent that what smokers who are not parties to the settlement agreement pay towards the settlement payments and the Health Impact Fee exceeds those costs, this scheme exacts a direct, although hidden, tax on smokers to fund any manner of nonsmoking-related state expenditures. This hidden tax is neither imposed on nor borne by any other Minnesota taxpayers. Thus, I find this scheme troubling.
Second, while I concur in the result reached by the court, I would reach that result in a different way. I would reach that result in a different way because it is not clear to me that the unmistakability doctrine applies here and because even if it does apply we need not apply it to resolve this ease. I read the settlement agreement and its release of “claims” to unambiguously cover no more than the claims the state brought or could have brought against respondents in the 1994 tobacco litigation or could bring in future litigation. Imposition of the Health Impact Fee does not create such a “claim.” Therefore, I would hold that under the unambiguous language -of the settlement agreement, imposition of the Health Impact Fee did not violate the settlement agreement.1

. In the end, respondents' challenge to the imposition of the Health Impact Fee would seem to be much ado about not very much. While complaining about the Health Impact Fee, respondents acknowledge that the state could impose an excise tax in the exact same amount as the Health Impact Fee and they would have no basis to challenge such a tax. Moreover, when all is said and done, the Health Impact Fee as imposed by the legislature is borne not by respondents but by retail cigarette purchasers.