COUNTY CLEARED TO SUE TOBACCO FIRMS.

Byline: Associated Press 

Los Angeles County has standing to sue the tobacco industry for the taxpayer dollars spent caring for victims of tobacco-related illness, a state judge in San Diego ruled Friday.

The ruling came as tobacco manufacturers, distributors and trade associations asked Superior Court Judge Robert E. May to throw out the county's suit.

The judge refused and found that the county can go forward on four of its five grounds for suit.

``We have five causes of action. They all involve the same thing: the conspiracy to sell a product that is addictive,'' said Zev Yaroslavsky, chairman of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. ``In essence, it's now up to us to make our case.''

He hailed the ruling as a ``major victory.''

``We think the information we're going to have and the documents from the industry . . . will prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that this industry corruptly conspired to addict a population,'' he said. ``The taxpayers should not be asked to subsidize the profits of that industry.''

May took under advisement one of the five causes of action, an allegation of common-law fraud, according to Yaroslavsky spokesman Joel Bellman.

At issue in that aspect of the case is interpretation of California's product liability law, which in 1987 said residents could not sue tobacco manufacturers or sellers because the product was inherently unsafe. The county contends that trade associations named in its suit are not governed by that law, Bellman said.

The judge set a conference for May 30 for lawyers on both sides to meet again.

The suit, filed Aug. 5 in Los Angeles Superior Court, was moved to San Diego because it would be a conflict of interest for Los Angeles jurors to hear a lawsuit brought by their local government.

Among defendants named in the suit are the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co., British American Tobacco Co., Liggett & Myers, the American Tobacco Co., Philip Morris and Lorillard.

In addition to manufacturers, the suit also names the Council for Tobacco Research-USA Inc. and the Tobacco Institute, as well as several distributors.

``The San Diego court knocked out a major part of the case by dismissing the fraud and misrepresentation claims of the County of Los Angeles, even though the court let the case go forward on the remaining statutory claims,'' said Tom Fitzgerald, a spokesman for Brown & Williamson in Louisville, Ky.

Calls to Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds parent RJR Nabisco, and Lorillard were not immediately returned.

The Tobacco Institute would not comment on the suit.