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% daily for Florida Smokers' Lawsuit Has N.C. Officials Sweating Associated Press Tobacco interests in North Carolina tear a Florida jury’s $6.9 million award to two sick smokers was a prelude to a potentially crippling punitive verdict against Big Tobacco that could bankrupt them. “This was a big shoe dropping, no doubt, but the really big shoe is still to come," said David Logan, a product lia bility law professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem. “These are absolutely uncharted waters because there has never been a case anything like this.” Jurors on Friday ordered the compa nies to pay the money to compensate a pair of sick smokers. The smokers are representing as many as 500,000 current and former Florida smokers in the first class-action lawsuit against tobacco com panies to reach trial. The same jury is expected to recon vene in a couple of weeks to consider what punitive damages to levy against cigarette makers. Tobacco companies have said they fear the punitive damages could easily top SIOO billion and might Serving U.N.C. for 10 Years & counting! student travel shop ./du n uu Jitj~r tea v£l eap e fit s; Student/Youth Airfare ISIC (Int’l Student ID Card) ,v Railpasses r , Traveller’s Insurance ijlW Hostels & Hotels •? 'VpLp T Guidebooks & Gear Tours for 18-35 year olds Work Abroad Programs Foreign Language Programs fSM Travel 137 E FRANKLIN STREET Chapel Hill 919-942-2334 NOW OPEN SATURDAYS 11 to 3 www.counciltravel.com | £ •’* | “■•••• c <1 Dragonfruit drink infused with Ginseng, Ginkgo Biloba and Guarana to give your body a natural energy boost. JgjSpe® 1 - lookforthesigns.com be more than S3OO billion. Punitive damages of this size could cost North Carolina thousands of tobac co jobs and millions of dollars in tax rev enue should cigarette companies be forced into bankruptcy. It also could jeopardize more than $6 billion expect ed to flow to the state from the landmark setdement cigarette makers reached with 46 states in 1998. “Our tobacco farmers in the next week to ten days will begin planting tobacco all across this state, and to have these companies have to declare bank ruptcy to protect themselves certainly will be devastating not only to tobacco farmers but to the whole economy of North Carolina,” says Larry Wooten, president of the North Carolina Farm Bureau. Cigarette makers are concerned they could be crippled just by posting bond to appeal such a verdict. N. C. legislators earlier this week met in a special session to cap the amount of an appeal bond against an N. C. company at $25 mil lion. Lawmakers said the law was aimed specifically at protecting the state’s ciga State k National rette makers in the Florida class-action lawsuit. N. C. Sen. Linda Garrou, D-Forsyth, a primary sponsor of the appeals cap legislation, said the General Assembly acted prudendy. “If you ask me, it looks like we acted just in time," she said. “I’m not sure what would have happened if we hadn’t taken acdon this week.” While some law experts question the constitutionality of such a cap, Logan said it was very unlikely that a S3OO bil lion award would soon force cigarette makers into bankruptcy. “Although a jury can do just about anything it wants, the judge has an oblig ation to make sure the verdict doesn’t violate the due process of the compa nies,” Logan said. Even if the verdict were to stand up on appeal, Logan predicted cigarette makers would be free to try to settle the lawsuit at any point. RJ. Reynolds Tobacco Cos. in Winston-Salem, one of the tobacco com pany defendants, said in its statement that trial judge Robert Kaye made errors that would be raised in appeals. Want to Work for a Leading College Internet Site? MainCampus.com is a dynamic pre-IPO college community website looking for: • Summer Interns (in New York City) • Campus Reps • Student Writers and Editors YouThink...Therefore We Are Contact: JOBS@MAINCAMPUS.COM Education Schools Get Grades By Alicia Gaddy Staff Writer The N.C. Department of Public Instruction recendy rated 46 education programs at state colleges and universi ties to determine which ones made the grade. While some schools were lauded for preparing their graduates for the class room, others received mediocre ratings. But officials at some schools claimed the study, in its first year, yielded incom plete data. DPI spokeswoman Kay Williams said North Carolina’s colleges and uni versities rated from 50 to 130 on a 145- point scale. UNC-Chapel Hill received 125 points. She said thp ratings were based on three major areas: compliance with state and national accreditation standards, quality of grades and involvement with public schools. She said they also sur veyed graduates, employers and mentor teachers to gauge satisfaction. Williams said she hoped the study would encourage N.C. schools to raise standards. “Our goal is to improve the quality of teacher education programs.’" She said the report card program facilitated Gov. Jim Hunt’s plan to make N.C. schools first in the nation by 2010. She said that because this was the report’s first year, the results were sub- ject to change. No actions would be taken against schools that did not mea sure up. “We feel sure that this report will improve,” Williams said. “There will not be rewards and sanctions this year.” She said schools scoring lower than 70 would have to make reports to the DPI to justify their ratings. But some schools’ administrators said they had complaints about the study results. Robert Shaw, dean of academic affairs at Wingate University, said the study’s criteria was flawed. Wingate received a rating of 95. “I’m not sure of the rela tionship between some of those vari ables and perfor- “People need to be very careful about saying ‘this institution is better than that institution. Charles Dlke ASU Reicht College of Education Dean mance of our graduates,” he said. Shaw said that although Wingate’s program was small and scored low, it was exemplary in teacher preparation. “We have about 25 graduates per year,” Shaw said. “We have an excellent program- we have no desire to get any larger.” Guilford College President Donald McNemar also said the report’s scoring methods were inadequate, citing incom- Seniors Faculty The Senior Class of 2000, The General Alumni Association, and The Division of Student Affairs request the pleasure of your company at an awards presentation in recognition of Outstanding Seniors & Favorite Faculty With Guest Speaker Chuck Stone Tuesday, April 11,2000 At 3:30 in the Afternoon George Watts Hill Alumni Center A f gLgtjjft Reception to Follow Monday, April 10, 2000 plete data and a small survey size. Guilford scored 80. “Guilford is known for the quality of its graduates who are teachers,” McNemar said. “I regret that this first survey is incomplete.” Officials from Appalachian State University, which has one of three top scoring programs, also said the study was questionable. Charles Duke, dean of ASU’s Reicht College of Education, said that while he was happy with the school’s score, the rankings were not written in stone. “I think the rankings should be viewed very care fully,” he said. “People need to be very careful about saying ‘this institu tion is better than that institution.’” But Duke said ASU had a large pro gram with a long history of educational preparation. He said 14 percent of N.C. teachers had graduated from ASU. “If you trace it’s roots back 100 years, it started out solely to prepare teachers,” he said. “We’re one of the largest teacher education programs in the state.” The State & National Editor can be reach at stntdesk@unc.edu. 7
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