FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, December 13, 1995

Decision Opens Door For Many Similar Legal Actions, Says Expert, Other Remedies Now Available to Nonsmokers, According to ASH.

For the first time in the U.S. an employer has been held liable for killing a worker by exposing him to secondhand tobacco smoke in the workplace.

This decision opens up the door for many similar legal actions against businesses which permit smoking, says Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), a national antismoking and nonsmokers' rights legal-action organization.

But workers don't have to wait until they are dead for legal action to be taken, says law professor John Banzhaf, ASH's executive director, noting that there are many legal theories under which nonsmokers have been successfully bringing legal actions to protect their health.

Indeed, notes Banzhaf, his organization has developed a process by which workers can file a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) simply by filling out a two-page form his group provides.

"Several employers have been banned all smoking as a result of the filing of the complaints," says Banzhaf.

"And the best news of all is that they can be filed anonymously, and that there is no cost of making such a complaint."

The award announced today requires the Veterans Administration [VA] to compensate the widower of a former VA nurse to pay for having caused her death from lung cancer.

Under the award, which found that her death from lung cancer was caused by exposure to secondhand smoke while working at the VA, the widower will receive more than $21,000 a year for the remainder of his life.

Banzhaf says that there have been several previous awards to nonsmokers, but in each case the injury was not fatal.

Moreover, he notes, since several decisions have held that subjecting someone to tobacco smoke may constitute an intentional tort, employers may even be subject to punitive damages.

ASH - ACTION ON SMOKING AND HEALTH 2013 H Street, NW / Washington, DC 20006 / (202) 659-4310