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Dept to cough up for cancer
11/05/2005 16:05 - (SA)
Rome - A Rome judge ordered Italy's education department on Tuesday to pay damages to the family of an employee diagnosed with lung cancer after working in a smoky room at the ministry for seven years, a consumer rights group said.
The Codacons group said Maria Sposetti had been exposed to second-hand smoke from three colleagues who smoked in their small office with no ventilation system. She had never smoked herself, nor had any members of her family, the group said.
Codacons said the education ministry will have to pay about $470 000 in damages to the woman's family. Sposetti died in a car crash in 2002.
In March, a Rome court ordered Italy's largest cigarette company, Ente Tabacchi Italiano, to pay $268 000 for a smoker's death, awarding the country's first compensation in a tobacco lawsuit.
In January, Italy began enforcing a strict ban on smoking in bars, restaurants, offices and other public spaces in one of Europe's severest anti-smoking measures. However, the country's new health minister, Francesco Storace, is a smoker and has said the law is excessive and the government should make it easier to designate smoking areas.
- AP
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