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	The Evidence Archive
What you think you know about tobacco may surprise you

Forces Comité van Aanbeveling

Forces Nederland
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MIAMI (AP) - A disabled flight attendant waiting for a lung transplant is not entitled to any money from the tobacco industry for illnesses she blames on cigarette smoke in jetliner cabins, a jury decided Thursday.

The jury found the tobacco industry was not liable for the lung disease that made Marie Fontana cough up blood on the witness stand during her testimony in the three-week trial. Jurors deliberated for less than six hours.

Fontana's request for compensatory damages is the first of 3,100 claims generated by the industry's $349 million settlement of a national class-action lawsuit by nonsmoking attendants. She was not present when the verdict was read.

"Her disease simply isn't caused by exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and obviously the jury got that," said Kenneth Reilly, attorney for Philip Morris and Lorillard. "Hopefully, it's a clear indication of what should happen with the remaining cases."

The nation's four biggest cigarette makers disputed testimony that she has emphysema and chronic bronchitis and said medical authorities agree there is no known cause for the only ailment that they acknowledge she has sarcoidosis.

Fontana's attorneys charged that her medical condition was aggravated by smoky air in the TWA jets she flew from 1973 to 1996 when she retired on disability.

The 59-year old Boca Raton woman came to court in a wheelchair only three days of her trial and requires a 24-hour oxygen feed through a nose tube and portable tanks.

"The jury's not always right," said Philip Gerson, one of Fontana's attorneys. "We thought that the evidence in the case proved that our client was harmed by environmental tobacco smoke."

In closing arguments Thursday, Fontana's attorneys relied on the testimony of two radiologists who said she has obstructive airway diseases that can be caused by secondhand smoke. Circuit Judge Thomas Wilson instructed the jury that, as a matter of law, secondhand smoke causes disease in healthy nonsmokers.

U.S. airlines banned smoking on domestic flights in 1990 and on international flights in 1997. Fontana flew mostly international routes.

After the jury left the courtroom to begin its work, the judge denied an industry request for a mistrial based on his jury instructions noting thousands of other attendants have damage claims pending as well.

"This verdict is a victory for scientific evidence and should put plaintiffs' attorneys on notice that these types of contrived lawsuits do not pass muster with the public," Daniel W. Donahue, senior vice president and deputy general counsel for Reynolds Tobacco, said in a statement. Brown & Williamson was the fourth defendant.

Reynolds trial attorney Jonathan Engram called the pro-tobacco verdict in the first of the attendants' trials "very significant." But Reilly said Fontana is the only attendant with a sarcoidosis diagnosis.

Other attendants' cases are on hold while the industry appeals an umbrella ruling eliminating the question of whether cigarette makers produce a defective product from the individual trials.

A state appeals court rejected a tobacco request to stop Fontana's trial, and her jury was not told of the class-action settlement.

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