et al. v. Philip Morris Incorporated Broin et al.

Four of the tobacco companies, Philip Morris, R. J. Reynolds, Lorillard, and Brown & Williamson agreed to pay $300 million over three years to establish and fund a nonprofit research foundation. The foundation would support scientific research on the early detection and cure of diseases associated with cigarette smoking. Ultimately, the research was hoped to benefit flight attendants suffering such diseases. The foundation, free from all active tobacco company control, was to be managed and directed by a board of trustees partly composed of selected flight attendants. The four companies also agreed to support federal legislation prohibiting smoking on all nonstop regularly scheduled international flights originating or terminating in the United States. The companies, asserting they merely wanted to avoid the expense of a long trial, denied any wrongdoing or violation of law.

As a key part of the settlement, individual flight attendants of the class action suit and their survivors retained the right to pursue separate lawsuits for damage awards from the four companies. The settlement agreement dismissed all other claims against all of the other tobacco companies involved in the case, including Liggett, the Tobacco Institute, Inc., and the Council for Tobacco Research-U.S.A. The settlement agreement, of course, did not affect the attendants' rights to make claims against any other parties not a part of the case.

An attendant could choose to bring a lawsuit in her home jurisdiction or the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Dade County, Florida. A concern of the companies was how the court would apply the various laws of the 50 states to the individual attendants. The amount of recoverable damages for the individual attendants would vary from state to state. For example, in Florida damages were not subject to dollar restrictions for physical injury in addition to less tangible damages including pain and suffering, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment of life, and disability. Some states had limits for the intangible damages. As a key part of the settlement, the companies waived all relevant statutes of limitations throughout the United States for any potential individual lawsuits filed by class attendants and their survivors for past injury, but the lawsuits had to be filed within a year after the settlement. The class included flight attendants employed back to the 1930s.

The tobacco companies also agreed to a significant shift in legal responsibility for the potential individual lawsuits. The companies assumed the burden of proof to demonstrate a lack of connection between secondhand smoke and the specific cases of cancer and other chronic respiratory ailments. Normally such responsibility would be the attendant's for proving particular diseases or medical conditions resulted from secondhand cigarette smoke in airline cabins. Numerous law firms offered their availability to represent the attendants with continuing technical assistance from the Broin lawyers. Also, any evidence presented to the jury in Broin would be treated as live witness testimony.

Lastly, the four tobacco companies also agreed to reimburse the attendants for all their legal and other expenses as part of Broin which involved over six years of activity. The amount was over $46 million.