RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina's highest court says three cigarette companies can stop making 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 could stop making payments to those growers under a 1999 agreement, which stemmed from the national tobacco settlement with the states a year earlier.
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.
Agriculture officials say farmers in Maryland and Pennsylvania would have received $22 million had a trial court ruling been upheld.
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