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"Tortious" or "tortous" (however it's spelled) is all I can remember from the two word phrase (yeah, that really identifies the term), but basically it's this: If Brown & Williamson has reason to believe that CBS/"60 Minutes" compelled Wigand to break his confidentiality agreement, even by the legal means in which it ultimately occurred (deposition in the civil suit), B & W has a right to sue CBS for damages -- and they were talking about $15 billion worth. So it doesn't matter if Wigand told the truth in his interview or not (which was taped BEFORE the civil suit deposition against the tobacco company) -- in fact, the movie made a big deal out of the fact that the more truthful Wigand was, the more damages that B & W could sue for. CBS was actually more willing to run an interview of lies (reducing the likelihood that they would be sued) than the truth, because Wigand was bound by a confidentiality agreement not to tell the truth, and lies couldn't put CBS into legal jeopardy.
By the way, I did not mention that Wigand had a bad history with the truth, and the tobacco companies attempted a smear campaign against him (in addition to supposedly threatening him) to make people question his credibility.
Interesting thoughts, Bickle.
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