sample="supplemental" bates="2070915802" isource="pm" decade="1990" class="ue" date="19960808" FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: DOLLY COLBY 212-878-2144 CASTANO LAWYERS FILING OF PHILADELPHIA CLASS ACTION IS MISUSE OF COURTS SAYS PHILIP MORRIS U.S.A. NEW YORK, August 8, 1996 -- This is yet another effort by entrepreneurial plaintiffs' lawyers to take unmeritorious individual cases and turn them into unmanageable class actions. As the Fifth Circuit Court held in decertifying the national class action in the Castano case, such mega-cases would require millions of individual trials before they could finally be resolved. Such an outcome would be a nightmare for Pennsylvania courts, its judges, and citizens who pay taxes to support the court system. "Cases brought by smokers against the cigarette companies inevitably turn on highly individual and personalized issues." said Charles R. Wall, senior vice president and deputy general counsel for Philip Morris. "By their very nature, these cases are not capable of being tried in one massive class action involving potentially hundreds of thousands, or millions, of claims. We expect the Court in Pennsylvania will say as much," said Wall. At the same time, manufacturers and businesses across Pennsylvania must now be deeply concerned that they, too, may be the target of a politically motivated lawsuit, no matter how little merit the lawsuit may have. # # # CONFIDENTIAL PM-0001028