Professor Robert L. Rabin spoke with the New York Times on the slowing down of tobacco litigation in the past decade:

A big tobacco case is set to start on Monday in St. Louis involving dozens of local hospitals, the nation’s biggest tobacco companies and 12 years’ worth of filings that fill 43 boxes in the city’s towering limestone courthouse.

But it has attracted little of the intense interest that once surrounded lawsuits against major cigarette producers — a sign, specialists say, that a tumultuous period of tobacco litigation is winding down after more than a decade with little financial damage to the industry.

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“In the large scheme of things, the impact of tobacco litigation has been minimal,” said Robert L. Rabin, a professor of law at Stanford.