Tobacco update

Flight attendant’s US$5.5mn award cut by 91% to US$500,000 by Judge Fredericka Smith in Florida’s Miami-Dade Circuit Court. Lead defendant Philip Morris stated that the remaining sum would now go to appeal. This decision could impact on the cases pending of 1,850 other flight attendants, participants in the 1998 class action settlement which led to tobacco companies paying US$350mn for various programmes, but nothing directly to the claimants.