Judge Upholds Flight Attendants’ Tobacco Deal

A $349-million settlement of a secondhand-smoke lawsuit will stand, despite controversy over its paying $49 million to attorneys and nothing to flight attendant plaintiffs, a judge said in an order. “The proposed settlement is fair, reasonable, adequate and in the best interests of the class,” Dade County Circuit Judge Robert Kaye said in his order. The settlement was reached Oct. 10, four months into the trial of Norma Broin vs. Philip Morris Cos., a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of nonsmoking flight attendants who said they were sickened by breathing secondhand smoke on U.S.-based airline flights. The lawsuit alleged the cigarette makers knew the dangers to nonsmokers and hid the health risks. Under the settlement, cigarette makers agreed to pay $300 million to create a research foundation and $49 million in plaintiffs’ attorneys legal fees and court costs. Attorneys representing flight attendants who opposed the settlement had argued the deal limited tobacco industry liability too much because it forbade punitive, so-called RICO racketeering and other damages in any individual lawsuits filed by flight attendants. Eric Olsen, a Jensen Beach, Fla., lawyer who had sought to overturn the settlement on behalf of dissident flight attendants, said attorneys who had opposed the deal would appeal.