tort negligence
Could non-smokers successfully sue smokers?
<p>I regularly see civil cases where, when one person is harmed, either directly or indirectly by another (for example, builders putting asbestos in a house, lead in pipes, etc), they are able to bring a tort civil case against the person causing the harm, to sue for damages:</p>

<p><a href="https://mesowatch.com/asbestos-exposure-lawsuits/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://mesowatch.com/asbestos-exposure-lawsuits/</a></p>

<p>This is because, chemically, asbestos causes cancer, and lead, poisoning.</p>

<p>There can even be lawsuits against offensive odours:</p>

<p><a href="https://www.legalreader.com/porta-potty-odor-leads-class-action-lawsuit/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.legalreader.com/porta-potty-odor-leads-class-action-lawsuit/</a></p>

<p>Putting the two types of cases together, both a chemical harm (EG causing cancer) and an odour, it strikes me smoking meets both criterion. Second hand smoke has clearly been documented as harmful, and certainly does smell:</p>

<p><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/secondhand_smoke/general_facts/index.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/secondhand_smoke/general_facts/index.htm</a></p>

<p>Which does mean the harm is foreseeable by a smoker who continues to smoke.</p>

<p>And whilst I'm aware tobacco companies have been sued for selling tobacco, they're not the ones actually burning it.</p>

<p>Which raises my question, could non-smokers, who either get directly or indirectly harmed by smoke, successfully sue smokers? Why isn't this a more common occurrence given the harm of smoke to others?</p>

<p>(Country is unimportant, but I'd be interested to see if it's possible in western and European countries.)</p>

<p>One of the biggest problems here is in proof of injury attributable to an individual...</p>

<p>With asbestos, you can prove that direct exposure in a certain instance caused a long-term harm. Just because you were around asbestos doesn't mean you get lung cancer, so if you don't actually suffer any harm (or any harm yet), you won't get awarded damages.</p>

<p>Similarly with lead, you have to prove both the exposure, the entity which exposed you to it, and harm that you suffered. Just being around a lead pipe or paint doesn't mean you get damages, you need to have suffered harm.</p>

<p>The problem with second-hand smoke is that you can be exposed to it from many different sources. Any problems you have (lung cancer) would need to be proven as a direct consequence of one specific (or prolonged) exposure. I could see this working if a non-smoking spouse developed cancer from a smoking spouse being exposed to it for years, but you can't just say "I walked by Joe Camel in the street while he was smoking now I have cancer and it is his fault". </p>

<p>So the issue becomes <em>who</em> is responsible for your damages. You can't narrow it down to one smoker (or even cigarette smoke, as lung cancer can develop from other sources), so just proving that your cause-effect is directly related to smoke will be difficult. After that you can't say one single person caused it (unless they forcefully locked you in a room and chain-smoked for a year). So who do you sue? All of smoking society? </p>

<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsuits_against_God" rel="noreferrer">You might just as well sue God for putting those people on earth</a>, really the only recourse you would have is to sue the tobacco companies, the individual smokers are not going to be held liable as a group.</p>

<p>Anyone can sue anyone for anything. But this is very unlikely to work where smoking is legal. If legislatures wanted to make people liable for harm that smoking causes through second hand smoke, they could do so. But there is no liability for killing someone with legal blows.</p>

<p>The law permits an employer to fire someone. That might result in awful things happening to them. But you can't sue your employer for those awful things happening to you because they are allowed to fire you.</p>

<p>The suits against tobacco companies didn't just say those companies did something perfectly lawful that happened to cause harm. They alleged that the tobacco companies lied about the health risks of their products in order to sell more of them. That's fraud.</p>

<p>Neither of your analogies is relevant. The asbestos lawsuits vary a bit, but most of them involve cases where employers knew (or should have suspected) that their employees would be exposed to asbestos and failed to provide appropriate protective gear required by law. In other words, legislatures chose to implement laws to protect people from asbestos exposure and the employers didn't follow those laws. It's unreasonable to expect an employee to identify the asbestos.</p>

<p>The porta potty example involves a case where someone was informed that something unusual that they were doing caused unusual harm to others and who failed to correct the issue even after they had specific complaints. If you were particularly susceptible to cigarette smoke (say due to allergy) and I kept smoking next door to you knowing that I was irritating your specific allergies, you might have a case.</p>

<p>By the way, legislatures have been addressing this issue with specific laws, which is the right way to address it if you wish to do so. Many public places ban cigarette use. There are laws about smoking around children and so on. But you don't want to make public policy decisions in courts, they're ill suited for it.</p>
