The Obama Administration has requested the US Supreme Court to let the Government seek damages close to US$300 Billion ($330 Billion) from the country's tobacco industry, mainly for about half a century of deception that ''has cost the lives and damaged the health of untold millions of Americans''.
On Friday, both the parties involved moved to the Supreme Court with their landmark and intense decade long legal battle over smoking.
The Administration and public health groups now want the Court to weed out ruling which bar the Government from getting its hands on US$280 Billion worth of post tobacco profits, in addition to US$14 Billion for a campaign to cut the smoking levels.
The tobacco companies, on the other hand, want the Supreme Court to throw out ruling which hint that the industry illegally concealed the dangers of cigarette smoking. If the sector succeeds, the attack on its earnings would also be stopped.
''For the last half-century those defendants have engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity and a conspiracy to engage in racketeering that has cost the lives and damaged the health of untold millions of Americans", Solicitor-General Elena Kagan said.