A federal judge ruled Monday that a jury should decide whether tobacco companies must pay tens of millions of smokers up to US$ 200 billion for allegedly duping them into buying light cigarettes over the past three decades.

The nation's biggest cigarette makers said they would appeal but their shares sagged on Wall Street as the ruling took the edge off what had appeared to be an improving legal environment for the industry.
"The plaintiffs are entitled to the chance to prove their allegations," US District Judge Jack Weinstein said in granting class-action status to a lawsuit against industry leader and Marlboro maker Philip Morris USA, its biggest US rival RJ Reynolds Tobacco and other cigarette manufacturers.
The judge set a trial date of 22 January 2007.
The suit, filed in 2004, alleges the tobacco companies responded to consumers' mounting health concerns with a marketing scheme to promote light cigarettes as a lower-risk alternative to regular cigarettes, even though their own internal documents showed they knew the risks were about the same.
Lawyers for the tobacco companies said they would appeal.
Last year, the US 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals threw out Weinstein's decision in a 2002 case in which he certified the first-ever, nationwide class-action against tobacco companies. The panel ruled he had stretched the boundaries of the law by allowing the plaintiffs to seek only punitive damages. (pi)