Passive smoke, active sufferers
Passive smokers seek compensation from tobacco companies for health hazards inflicted on them by smokers. Norma Broin, 42, has been a flight attendant with American Airlines for 21 years. In 1989, she found out that she had lung cancer. According to her doctors, the cancer was caused by the smoke from passengers' cigarettes. In the US, smoking was permitted in most flights before 1990. Broin and 25 other plaintiffs have filed complaints against cigarette companies.
The suit is the first of its kind and seeks us $5 billion on behalf of an estimated 60,000 non-smoking flight attendants, including former employees. This marks another legal assault on tobacco companies: the price of health problems suffered by non-smokers from cigarette smoke. Interestingly, the suit does not hold any airline responsible.
Commenting on the peculiarities of the case, John Coffee, professor at the Columbia University Law School, says the case will carry tobacco litigation into new territory. "Smokers who buy a pack of cigarettes have been given warnings that make them aware of the risks,' he says. "But there is no reason for the jury to agree that these flight attendants assented to whatever risks tobacco posed.'
Another factor that may weigh against tobacco companies in the several law suits against them are the findings of a 10-year study conducted by Harvard researchers. The study involved 32,000 healthy women and it was found that regular exposure to other people's smoking doubles the risk of heart attacks. The women taken up for the study were between 36 and 61 years of age. There were 152 cases of heart attacks, 25 of them fatal.
The study goes on to say that there may be as many as 50,000 Americans dying of heart attacks due to passive smoking each year. John Banzhaf, professor of law at the George Washington University, Washington, DC, feels that since passive smoking can cause heart problems more quickly than it causes lung cancer, it will be easier to show the connection to the juries.