The Supreme Court revived a lawsuit Monday by four British Muslims who said they were tortured and abused at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and harassed and humiliated during daily prayers.
The former prisoners are attempting to hold top Pentagon officials responsible for the abuse, including former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
The lawsuit was thrown out last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, which concluded that the Guantanamo prisoners had no rights under the Constitution because they were foreigners held by the military.
In a one-line order Monday, the justices set aside the appeals court’s decision and ordered the judges to take a new look at the case.
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In June, the Supreme Court rejected the premise that all Guantanamo prisoners had no rights. In a 5-4 ruling, the justices said the Constitution’s protection for the right of habeas corpus extended to all Guantanamo detainees. The decision cleared the way for prisoners to sue for their freedom before a judge.
Citing that ruling, lawyers for the former prisoners at the U.S.-run detention center in Cuba appealed to the high court in August.
“The torture, abuse and religious humiliation of Muslim detainees at Guantanamo Bay stands as a shameful episode in our history,” their lawyer, Eric Lewis, wrote in his appeal.
The four British men include Shafiq Rasul. He was the lead plaintiff in the 2004 ruling that first granted the right of habeas corpus to prisoners held at Guantanamo.
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Rasul, a native of Tipton, England, traveled to Pakistan in 2001 to study computer science. He and three other men went to Afghanistan a few months later to help with a humanitarian crisis. The men were captured by warlords and turned over to U.S. forces. They spent more than two years at Guantanamo before they were freed and returned to England.
In their suit, the men say they were shackled in painful positions, threatened by dogs, subjected to extremes of hot and cold, and harassed during their daily prayers.
Their suit named Rumsfeld and top generals who were in charge of Guantanamo.
Bush administration lawyers had urged the high court to reject the appeal and dismiss the suit.
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U.S. Solicitor General Gregory G. Garre said the appeals court had correctly concluded “that military detainees could not impose personal monetary liability on the nation’s military commanders for overseas conditions of confinement during a time of war.”
The justices rejected that idea Monday.
Lewis, the lawyer for the British men, said the court’s action was “a clear signal to the Court of Appeals that its decision . . . was wrong and should be overturned.”
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david.savage@latimes.com
The United States Supreme Court on Monday ruled that "tobacco companies that marketed 'light' and 'low tar' cigarettes may be sued for fraud." The 5-to-4 judgment is expected to open the way for dozens of lawsuits claiming billions of dollars in damages.
United States Supreme Court building.

In the certiorari ruling penned by Justice Stevens, the Court held that a class action brought under state law prohibiting deceptive advertising generally was not preempted by federal law regulating cigarette advertising. The lawsuit claims that tobacco makers who manufacture "light" and "low tar" cigarettes had deceived smokers into thinking the products are safer than regular cigarettes. Former United States Solicitor General Theodore Olson, now working with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, argued the case for the petitioners, Altria Group and Philip Morris USA.

Several smokers in recent decades switched to light cigarettes, with fervent faith they posed less of a danger to their health. But scientific or medical researches have shown this common-sense view is wrong. Although mechanical tests showed "light" cigarettes emitted less tar when burned, actual smokers inhale about the same amount of tar when they puff on a light cigarette, the studies found. The cigarette business faces more than 30 class-action lawsuits from smokers and ex-smokers who seek billions of dollars in damages and claim they were deceived by the marketing of light and low-tar cigarettes.
 
Respondents Stephanie Good and 2 others are Maine residents and for over 15 years smoked Marlboro Lights and Cambridge Lights cigarettes, which are manufactured by petitioners Altria Group and Philip Morris USA. They sought damages compensation for economic rather than medical harm, claiming they had overpaid for cigarettes based on fraudulent advertisements suggesting that light cigarettes were safer than regular ones. The Labeling Act requires tobacco companies to indicate rotating warnings on their packaging and advertising. “No requirement or prohibition 'based on smoking and health' shall be imposed under state law with respect to the advertising or promotion,” the law provides, and only if the labeling requirements on cigarettes are obeyed. 
Evolution of the "Marlboro Miles" promotion. From left to right: "5 Miles" used through 2003; "FIVE Miles" used ca. 2004-2006; and no Marlboro Miles (after ca. April 2006).
In the case, the Court applied the pertinent Federal laws, in question, Title 15 U.S.C. § 1334(b), the "Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act" and Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 5, § 207 (Supp. 2008), the "Maine Unfair Trade Practices Act" (MUTPA). It held that "the Labeling Act neither expressly nor impliedly pre-empts respondents’ fraud claim." The landmark decision allows the lawsuit to proceed on the merits upon remand to the trial court below. The ruling strikes a blow against a broad effort by U.S. corporations to limit their exposure to lawsuits filed under federal law. 

The court also dismissed Philip Morris's argument that the Federal Trade Commission's mid-1960s endorsement of machine testing of cigarette tar and nicotine levels "should relieve the company of liability for alleged fraud." In November, the FTC officially dropped its endorsement of the Cambridge Filter Method, saying it is flawed because "the machine doesn't take into account the way smokers adjust their behavior."

The Supreme Court in a June ruling, said 8 to 1 that "a case filed in a state court alleging a defective catheter was pre-empted by a federal statue providing regulation of medical devices to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration." The court also ruled in 1992 in 'Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc.' that "the phrase 'based on smoking and health' in the Labeling Act did not apply to pre-empt suits under state laws based on the 'general duty' not to make fraudulent statements." 

Justice Clarence Thomas said that "some kinds of fraud claims against cigarette makers may go forward, just not those concerning smoking and health. Thus, if cigarette manufacturers were to falsely advertise their products as ‘American-made’ or ‘the official cigarette of Major League Baseball,’ state-law claims arising from that wrongful behavior would not be pre-empted. Forbidding lawsuits based on health claims, would not mean consumers lack protection, as tobacco marketing is subject to regulatory oversight." 

Altria's associate general counsel, Murray Garnick, in a statement, said "we continue to view these cases as manageable, and the company will assert many of the strong defenses used successfully in the past to defend against this very type of case."