Litigation
There have been hundreds of lawsuits involving tobacco including:
- employees, customers, prisoners, and tenants have sued employers, proprietors, prisons, landlords, and condo associations about secondhand smoke
- parents in child custody suits and child welfare agencies have sought to protect children from secondhand smoke
- individuals have brought actions for assault against smokers
- employees and unions have challenged smokefree air policies
- smokers and nonsmokers have claimed handicap discrimination
- governments and health insurers have sued tobacco companies for reimbursement for medical care costs
- smokers and nonsmoking flight attendants, individually and in class-actions, have sued tobacco companies for damages
- citizen groups (aka tobacco-industry front groups) have sued governments that enacted tobacco-control legislation.
The Tobacco Control Resource Center at Northeastern University School of Law publishes Summary of Legal Cases Regarding Smoking in the Workplace and Other Places. It's not available online (as this is written) but you can get their contact information from their website: www.tobacco.neu.edu.
Last update: 8/31/11