The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal of a $270 million verdict in Louisiana against Philip Morris and other big cigarette companies, dashing their hopes that the court’s animosity toward big class actions displayed in Wal-Mart vs. Dukes may extend to tobacco lawsuits...The case was cleverly constructed as a class action on behalf of Louisiana smokers only, to keep it from being removed to federal court on diversity grounds...The lawyers were doubly clever by constructing it as a lawsuit seeking money for a statewide smoking-cessation program...The denial is still striking, however, since in Wal-Mart the court struck down a class action on behalf of 1.5 million women who lawyers said all had suffered sex discrimination.