Casey Goodwin knew all too well the dangers of drinking and driving.
For years, her mother, Lynne, had run programs to fight teen alcohol use in the Tulare County schools. At her high school in the Central Valley town of Exeter, Casey had been involved in student campaigns against underage drinking.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday January 28, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 36 words Type of Material: Correction
Alcohol ads -- An article in Thursday's Business section about lawsuits that target the marketing practices of the alcohol industry said one of the suits was filed in Washington. It was referring to the nation's capital.
On March 13, 2003, as 20-year-old Casey was headed home from college in San Luis Obispo to celebrate her mom's birthday, a plastered 18-year-old doing 90 miles an hour plowed into her Honda Civic. She died a short time later.
The driver was sentenced to 10 years in prison for vehicular manslaughter.
Then Lynne Goodwin and her husband, Reed, turned their anger on the alcohol industry. They signed on as lead plaintiffs in a class-action suit accusing Anheuser-Busch Cos. and Miller Brewing Co. of aggressively marketing to kids.
Lynne said she didn't care whose booze Casey's killer had been drinking. She didn't hold the beer makers directly responsible but said they were logical proxies for an industry that she believed goaded kids to drink.
Filed last February in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the Goodwin case is one of five pending class actions that assail the marketing practices of the beverage industry. The others have been filed over the last 14 months in Ohio, Colorado, North Carolina and Washington.
The cases have drawn comparisons to the legal assault on cigarette makers, which have also been accused of marketing to kids.
Beverage makers deny targeting teens and say the claims are groundless.
The suits accuse them of unleashing a flood of provocative, even raunchy, ads to exploit the raging hormones of adolescents. They say teens are disproportionately exposed to such ads through magazines and TV shows with large youth audiences.
For example, a Bacardi ad cited in some of the suits depicts a young woman in a halter top pouring a shot onto her belly while a man licks the rum out of her navel. "Vegetarian by day. Bacardi by night," the tagline says.
The suits also take aim at the industry's heavy promotion of flavored malt beverages, called "malternatives" by the industry and "alcopops" by critics. Plaintiffs say these sweet-tasting beverages with brand names such as Smirnoff Ice, Skyy Blue and Mike's Hard Lemonade, are "gateway" drinks designed to lure teens who are put off by the taste of alcohol.
