RALEIGH
North Carolina's highest court says three cigarette companies no longer have to make payments to tobacco farmers in Maryland and Pennsylvania through a decade-old settlement.
The state Supreme Court ruled Friday that Philip Morris, Lorillard and R.J. Reynolds tobacco companies could stop making payments to those growers through a 1999 agreement. The agreement says the companies could reduce their payments when Congress agreed to a buyout for quota owners in 2004.
The justices ruled the states entered the agreement knowing the payments would end as a result of a quota buyout.
Maryland's Department of Agriculture says farmers in that state and in Pennsylvania would have received $22 million had a trial court ruling been upheld.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement