[Intl-tobacco] Italy to pay 400,000 euros in passive smoking case

[robert weissman]

Italy to pay 400,000 euros in passive smoking case
10 May 2005 16:36:17 GMT
Source: Reuters
ROME, May 10 (Reuters) - An Italian lung cancer victim who spent seven
years inhaling her colleagues' second-hand cigarette smoke in a cramped
government office was posthumously awarded 400,000 euros ($513,800) in
damages on Tuesday by a Rome court.

The damages, which will be paid to her surviving relatives, are believed
to be the largest ever awarded in Italy due to second-hand smoke and the
first against the government.

"It's a very important precedent, because it opens the way for hundreds,
thousands of other cases," said Marco Ramadori at consumer group
Codacons, which backed the lawsuit. Maria Sposetti, who worked for
Italy's Education Ministry, was the only non-smoker in small
street-level office which she shared with three smokers. She complained,
but was told there was no law at the time prohibiting smoking, Codacons
said.

She was later diagnosed with cancer and had part of her right lung
removed in 1992. Sposetti was undergoing chemotherapy at the time of her
death, in a traffic accident in Feb. 2000. She was 57 years old at the time.

The court, arguing that the Education Ministry failed to protect her at
her workplace, awarded more than 260,000 euros in physical damages and
more than 130,000 in emotional damages. The case is the latest victory
by anti-smoking campaigners, who in January toasted the enactment of a
nationwide smoking ban in shared areas of offices, restaurants, bars and
factories.

It aims to end passive smoking and deter a habit health officials say
kills 90,000 Italians a year. ($1=.7784 Euro)