Supreme Court stay issued in $1.4 million judgment against airline
03/12/03
WASHINGTON - Greece-based Olympic Airways won a stay at the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) that will protect it, for now, from paying $1.4 million to heirs of an asthmatic man who died after being exposed to second hand smoke on an international fl
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (news - web sites) blocked an appeals court decision that upheld the judgment. She gave the family of Dr. Abid Hanson time to file arguments in the case. The stay was announced Wednesday.
Hanson, 52, suffered an asthma attack on a flight from Athens, Greece to New York in January 1998.
He was seated in the nonsmoking section but complained about the nearby smoking section, which was not separated by a partition. A lower court judge in California ruled that because a flight attendant repeatedly rejected his family's requests to move him to a different seat, the carrier was liable under international treaties demanding compensation for those injured or killed during an "accident."
Olympic Airways attorney Andrew Harakas of New York said in filings that courts have adopted various interpretations of standards for such lawsuits. He urged the Supreme Court to clarify whether the air carrier can be held responsible for "the passenger's internal reaction to the normal conditions on an aircraft."
Cigarettes
