WASHINGTON – A federal appeals court on Monday suggested that it may scale back U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler’s order requiring tobacco companies to issue “corrective statements” on cigarette products,” reports the Wall Street Journal.

The corrective statements, outlined by Kessler in November 2012, would include language that a federal court ruled that the companies “deliberately deceived the American public.” Tobacco companies have reserved the right to appeal the statements, which would address a range of deceptions about smoking’s impact on health, its addictive nature and the health effects of second-hand smoke, as well as false advertising of light or low-tar cigarettes as less harmful.

On Monday, two of the three judges on the panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voiced concern about the wording of the warnings, writes the news source, adding that if the court finds that parts of the warnings go too far, they would need to be rewritten.

D.C. Circuit Judge David Tatel “expressed reservations” about Kessler’s decision to force tobacco companies to disclose in the warnings they had deliberately deceived the public. “That’s different than focusing on the product,” he said.

Miguel Estrada, representing Philip Morris USA, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and  Lorillard Tobacco  Co., said the cigarette makers “stand ready to disseminate truthful, factual information about the health effects of their products,” writes the news source, adding that he argued the wording of Kessler’s product warnings was designed to punish and stigmatize the companies. He said it would violate the First Amendment to force his clients to publicly brand themselves as wrongdoers.

Melissa Patterson, an attorney for the Justice Department, said that Kessler’s intent was not to “humiliate the tobacco companies” but to make sure the product warnings would be effective in “countering tobacco-company efforts to mislead consumers.”

A ruling is likely in the coming months.