On June 27, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a Louisiana state court decision that certified a massive class action against the nation’s major cigarette makers. The one-sentence order was a setback for WLF, which filed a brief urging that review be granted. WLF’s brief charged that the Louisiana courts are using their class action rules in a manner that violates the due process rights of defendants. WLF argued that class action rules are intended to promote efficiency by permitting cases to be tried simultaneously when they involve common questions of fact or law, not to increase the substantive legal rights of plaintiffs. WLF asserted that Louisiana has chosen the latter course; it permitted the named plaintiffs to prove their fraud claims without producing evidence that any class member relied on the defendants’ allegedly false statements. The Louisiana courts ultimately imposed a $242 million judgment on the defendants, to pay the cost of smoking cessation programs.