The Denver Gazette reports that Denver has sued Philip Morris USA and a collection of other tobacco companies, demanding they pay costs associated with cigarette butts discarded on city property, streets, stormwater systems and waterways. The city alleges the companies should bear responsibility because cigarette filters persist in the environment and impose cleanup and infrastructure costs on taxpayers.
And here we arrive at one of those moments when government manages to turn a perfectly legitimate complaint into something completely laughable. Cigarette butts thrown on the ground are disgusting. People should not litter. Denver taxpayers should not have to endlessly pay to clean up somebody else’s garbage. So naturally, Denver appears to have skipped right past the person who actually threw the cigarette on the ground and headed for the corporation with the largest checkbook.
The lawsuit does not specify a dollar amount Denver wants to recover. City officials told the Gazette that parks crews spend two to three hours per day cleaning parks, although cigarette butts are only part of that workload. Denver also points to street sweeping, storm drains and waterways as sources of expense. The city alleges public nuisance, trespass, negligence and product liability, while tobacco companies fighting a similar case in Baltimore have argued that manufacturers cannot reasonably be held liable because customers illegally litter their products.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Denver says Big Tobacco should pick up the tab. The city is suing Philip Morris, Altria, R.J. Reynolds and several other tobacco companies for costs it says are connected to discarded cigarette filters. Apparently the guy who flicked the Marlboro onto the sidewalk has vanished from the chain of responsibility.
- The city has not put a clear price tag on the problem. Denver says workers spend substantial time cleaning parks and streets, but the city did not quantify how much of that work is specifically attributable to cigarette butts. That seems like a useful number to have before marching into court demanding somebody else pay the bill.
- Denver’s theory is that the product itself creates the continuing problem. The complaint alleges that filtered cigarettes foreseeably create persistent waste and that the manufacturers have known about the environmental effects of cigarette filters for years. Those are Denver’s allegations, not established findings of liability.
- The tobacco companies have already previewed the obvious counterargument. In Baltimore litigation, they argued that this logic could eventually make manufacturers responsible whenever consumers improperly discard everything from bottles to bags to receipts. In other words, if some jackwagon throws a Pepsi bottle into the gutter, do we subpoena PepsiCo?
- Denver also wants litigation costs and attorney fees covered. Because nothing says “efficient municipal cleanup strategy” quite like hiring lawyers to determine who should pay for the garbage while city employees continue picking up the garbage.
My Bottom Line
This is 100 percent laughable.
The same political mentality that wants to blame a gun for the crime now wants to blame a cigarette company for the litter. In both cases, there is an inconvenient little detail standing between the politician and the preferred villain: a human being made a choice. A person pulled the trigger. A person threw the cigarette butt on the ground. Objects do not develop agency just because somebody with a law degree needs a defendant with money.
That does not mean tobacco companies get some sacred corporate hall pass. If Denver can prove these companies violated an actual legal duty, caused identifiable damage and owe a measurable amount under the law, then show us the receipts. But Denver ought to have receipts of its own. How much does cigarette litter specifically cost taxpayers? What are we currently spending on enforcement? How many litter citations are actually issued? What will this lawsuit cost? And why is courtroom roulette a better answer than enforcing the litter laws against the people doing the littering? The Gazette reports that Denver’s complaint itself does not quantify a specific recovery amount, which makes those questions rather important.
Because I don’t buy for a second that this is primarily about sparkling-clean sidewalks. The smoker who tosses a butt on Colfax probably does not have enough money to finance anybody’s next government initiative. Philip Morris does. And that is the tell. When government starts working backward from “who has the deepest pockets?” instead of forward from “who actually did the thing?”, accountability has been replaced by revenue hunting.
Fine the litterbug. Enforce the law. Publish the cleanup costs. Make Denver government demonstrate that it is competently managing the problem already. But don’t hand us a cigarette butt and tell us the corporation threw it on the sidewalk. That particular load of bullshit won’t fit in an ashtray.
Source: Denver Gazette
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