Jump to full article: Reuters, 2001-04-05
Author: Michael Connor
Intro: U.S. cigarette makers defeated the first of about 3,200 individual secondhand-smoke claims on Thursday, when a Miami jury ruled the companies had no liability for the lung ailments of a former flight attendant.
The six-person jury spent less than a day deciding against Marie Fontana, 59, a former TWA flight attendant who relies on portable oxygen tanks and who blames her sarcoidosis on passengers smoking on planes.
``There is no liability for the defendants,'' a Miami court official said. . .
Vice President Ronald Milstein of Lorillard Tobacco, a unit of Loews Corp and also a defendant, said the jury had ``used its common sense, and found that the plaintiff's (secondhand smoke) exposure had nothing do with the plaintiff's injury.
Tobacco analyst Bonnie Herzog of Credit Suisse First Boston said Fontana, who testified while using breathing apparatus, was among the most sympathetic of the secondhand smoke claimants. The loss may prompt other plaintiffs to back away from trial, she said.
``This is good news (for the tobacco industry), and we would expect the industry to continue to win the vast majority of these cases going forward,'' Herzog said.
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