Tobacco.org

• Firm sued by ex-employee over asthma linked to smoking coworkers 

The first lawsuit to be filed against an employer whose failure to stop smokers apparently caused a non-smoking employee to contract asthma has been submitted to the Rehovot Magistrate's Court, with the plaintiff demanding NIS 707,500.

Avi Greenberg is a 31-year-old Shoham resident who worked for almost a year in logistics, distribution and service at Negev Ceramics Marketing in Rehovot. He is demanding this sum for permanent disability (of 20 percent); refusal of severance pay; medical devices he needs; a potentially shortened life span; lack of salary; suffering, restrictions and pain; and an objective medical expert's opinion.

He is being represented by lawyer Amos Hausner, the chairman of the National Council for the Prevention of Smoking, who said that if Greenberg wins the case, it will deter many employers from permitting blatant violations of the law preventing smoking at the workplace, other than in designated separate rooms.

Every time Greenberg went to work, he was exposed to "massive amounts of tobacco smoke" from two to eight heavy smokers

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