No money damages awarded to flight attendant who sued tobacco industry
Jump to full article: Miami (FL) Herald, 2001-04-06
Author: JAY WEAVER
Intro: They were asked one threshold question on the verdict form: ``Was environmental tobacco smoke on airplanes where plaintiff Marie J. Fontana worked a legal cause of damage to the plaintiff?''
Their answer: ``No.''
One of the jurors, reached later by phone, said the panel was not convinced that secondhand smoke caused her respiratory illnesses.
``There was not a lot of evidence to support her suit against the tobacco industry,'' said Melvin Galeano of Miami. ``It was hard. Maybe in another case, it will be different.'' . .
In the mid-1980s, the U.S. Surgeon General issued the first report linking secondhand smoke to possible respiratory illnesses. But the message took a while to catch on with the public and airline industry, which is not a defendant under the flight attendants' settlement. . .
William Ohlemeyer, chief legal counsel for Philip Morris, the nation's biggest cigarette maker, said it's difficult to point to Fontana's verdict as a ``bellwether.''
``But it was important because it was the first case,'' Ohlemeyer said in a phone interview from New York. ``It demonstrates we have a persuasive defense and that these are difficult for plaintiffs to successfully try.
``The vast majority of these cases don't involve cancer,'' he said. ``They involve unspecific respiratory complaints and diseases that are not typically associated with cigarette smoking and environmental tobacco smoke.''
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