National Roundup

California
Flight attendants who blamed uniforms for their health issues win a lawsuit against clothing company
A jury in California ruled that a clothing company should pay more than $1 million to four American Airlines flight attendants who blamed chemicals used in the production of their uniforms for causing a variety of ailments including rashes, headaches and breathing problems.

The verdict last week could be just the tip of the iceberg: Lawyers say they represent more than 400 other flight attendants who are making the same claims against the uniform maker.

The judge has not affirmed the jury’s decision. A lawyer for the flight attendants called that step a technicality. The uniform maker’s lawyers declined to say whether they will appeal.
American gave new uniforms to flight attendants in 2016, and many were happy to get them after a decade wearing the same outfit. Complaints soon followed, however.

“I would wake up and my eyes would be completely swollen. I looked like I had been in a boxing match,” says Tracey Silver-Charan. “I was unable to breathe. I often felt like I was going to pass out on the job. I was coming home and my husband was running me to the urgent care.”

American gave flight attendants the option of wearing their old uniforms, or even picking out an outfit at Macy’s or JCPenney, said Silver-Charan, a Los Angeles-based flight attendant who has been in the field for 37 years.

Silver-Charan is part of a group of flight attendants who sued in 2017, and she was among four involved in the bellwether trial in Alameda County Superior Court near San Francisco to see how a jury would view the case.

The jury decided that the uniforms provided by Twin Hill Acquisition Co. were a “substantial factor in causing harm” to the flight attendants. However, jurors said the company was not negligent in its design of the garments nor in failing to recall them when complaints began to pour in.

Daniel Balaban, one of the lawyers for the airline employees,  said that other cases could go to trial if Twin Hill declines to settle them.

Twin Hill could ask the judge to reduce the jury award and could appeal the verdict. A lawyer for the company, Robert V. Good Jr., declined to comment when reached by phone.

American eventually ended the contract with Twin Hill and contracted with Land’s End for uniforms.

In their lawsuit, the flight attendants claimed that their uniforms contained traces of formaldehyde, toluene and other toxic chemicals linked to health problems. Resins containing formaldehyde have been used in fabric for years to keep clothes wrinkle-free and make them last longer.

A 2010 study by congressional researchers found that formaldehyde levels in clothing is generally low, but some people suffer allergic reactions including rashes, blisters, and itchy or burning skin. Washing clothes before wearing them can help, but doesn’t always work, the researcher said.

The flight attendants’ lawyers put on witnesses who testified about a 2018 study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, who reported finding a link between new uniforms and health complaints by Alaska Airlines attendants.

Lawyers for Twin Hill put on expert witnesses who discounted the potential health effects of the uniforms. Silver-Charan said none of the defense experts ever talked to her or asked to test her uniform for chemicals.

The jury proposed $320,000 in lost income and pain and suffering for Silver-Charan and $750,000 in damages for Brenda Sabbatino — the two attendants chosen by their lawyers.
Defense lawyers selected two others who had reported less severe health effects. For them, the jurors proposed $10,000 and $5,000 in damages.


Alabama
Court says state can execute inmate with nitrogen gas
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A divided Alabama Supreme Court said the state can execute an inmate with nitrogen gas, a method that has not previously been used carry out a death sentence.

The all-Republican court in a 6-2 decision Wednesday granted the state attorney general’s request for an execution warrant for Kenneth Eugene Smith. The order did not specify the execution method, but the Alabama attorney general indicated in filings with the court that it intends to use nitrogen to put Smith to death. The exact date of the execution will be set later by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey.

The decision moves Alabama closer to being the first state to attempt an execution with nitrogen gas, although there is likely to be additional litigation over the proposed new execution method. Three states — Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi — have authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method but no state has attempted to use it.

Smith was one of two men convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett in Alabama’s Colbert County.

“Elizabeth Sennett’s family has waited an unconscionable 35 years to see justice served. Today, the Alabama Supreme Court cleared the way for Kenneth Eugene Smith to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall wrote. “Though the wait has been far too long, I am grateful that our capital litigators have nearly gotten this case to the finish line.”

Lawyers for Smith had urged the court to reject the execution request.

“The state seeks to make Mr. Smith the test subject for the first ever attempted execution by an untested and only recently released protocol for executing condemned people by the novel method of nitrogen hypoxia,” Smith’s attorneys wrote in a September court filing.

Under the proposed method, the inmate would be forced to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions and causing them to die. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen. While proponents of the new method have theorized it would be painless, opponents have likened it to human experimentation.

The state unsuccessfully attempted to put Smith to death by lethal injection last year. The Alabama Department of Corrections called off the execution when the execution team could not get the required two intravenous lines connected to Smith.

Smith’s attorneys previously accused the state of trying to move Smith to “the front of the line” for a nitrogen execution in order to moot Smith’s lawsuit challenging lethal injection procedures.

Chief Justice Tom Parker and Justice Greg Cook dissented in Wednesday’s decision.

Prosecutors said Smith was one of two men who were each paid $1,000 to kill Sennett on behalf of her pastor husband, who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect on insurance.
The slaying, and the revelations over who was behind it, rocked the small north Alabama community. Her husband killed himself a week later. The other man convicted in the slaying was executed in 2010.