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Lawyers Weigh Options After Tobacco Award Slashed 

Lawyers for a former TWA flight attendant who saw her $5.5 million secondhand smoke verdict decimated by a Miami-Dade judge last week say they're considering asking for a new trial on damages.

On Sept. 13, Circuit Judge Fredricka G. Smith reduced to $500,000 the award that former flight attendant Lynn French had won after a two-week jury trial in June. French, 56, had asked for $1.06 million in damages, alleging that secondhand smoke to which she was subjected in her 27 years as a flight attendant left her with chronic sinusitis -- essentially, a perpetual cold. . .

One of French's attorneys, Adam Trop, a partner at Grover, Weinstein & Trop in Miami Beach, Fla., disputed the judge's comments.

Trop said he doesn't know how the judge could consider the tobacco companies as victims of popular prejudice in this case when, in the other three secondhand smoke trials to date, the companies have won two cases and gotten one mistrial. "I thought the jury award was appropriate, but it was more than we asked for," Trop said. "But she reduced it to less than half what we asked for. We've got to talk to our client and consider all the options on it. We're disappointed and frankly surprised."

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[P]rejudice against tobacco companies, a present-day popular villain, interfered with the jury's ability to assess the damages based on a reasonable view of the evidence.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Fredricka G. Smith, who last week reduced to $500,000 the award that former flight attendant Lynn French had been granted.