If this round of cases is well received, there may be two more Warhol collections.
Dr. Martin Hugh-Jones, a microbiologist at Louisiana State University, said epidemiologists would learn much from studying the current round of cases, particularly those that proved fatal.
Of more concern, he said in the interview and a note to investors, is a coming round of cases claiming fraud and damages from past marketing of so-called light cigarettes.
Richard A. Daynard, the director of the Tobacco Products Liability Project at the Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, said he believed that the Castano Group could directly seek fees in only one of the later round of cases.
Some defendants targeted in the latest round of cases, such as Rajat K. Gupta, a former Goldman Sachs director, and the hedge fund manager Anthony Chiasson, can afford to mount a vigorous defense to the charges.
"This is the latest chapter in the tobacco wars, and it is over the forgotten class in those wars," said G. Kendrick Macdowell, a lawyer at the Washington firm of Patton Boggs, which is coordinating the new round of cases with lawyers from around the country.
Federal agents on Wednesday arrested an executive of a research firm on charges that he helped hedge funds obtain improper information about publicly traded companies, the first of what is expected to be a new round of cases related to insider trading.
The latest round of cases, which include Wallace's, are more contentious.
While this latest round of cases concerns incidents that occurred primarily in Europe, these two polls demonstrate that the repercussions from American Catholics concerning their increasingly negative views of Catholic Church leaders are continuing.
In throwing out the latest round of the case earlier this year, Bruce J. Einhorn, an immigration judge, described it as "an embarrassment to the rule of law".
