Illinois has received a major windfall from its 1998 legal settlement with major tobacco companies.
The state gets an annual payout each year from that multi-state settlement stemming from lawsuits over deceptive marketing by tobacco companies and the costs to society caused by smoking. But in addition to this year’s payment of $258 million, the state also received an additional $546 million in payments that had been tied up for years in a legal dispute. The big tobacco companies had argued that they should be able to reduce their payments to the states because some of the liability should fall on smaller tobacco manufacturers that weren’t part of the settlement.
Illinois reached a separate agreement on the disputed money, resulting in the additional half- billion payout
