July 14, 2009

Obviously, cigarettes’ toxic chemicals far exceed the “Threshold Limit Values.” Wherefore TTS-caused injuries and deaths are common, foreseeable, “natural and probable consequences.” TTS exposure causes Increased Risk of Death. There is a common law right to “fresh and pure air,” a duty to not endanger people, and, when one does cause harm, to aid the victim. “Fresh and Pure Air” is already the law. ~ Smoking at Condominiums/Apartments – What the Law Really Says

This is one of many such cases working their way through the legal system. I offer this as an answer to those who say a person has the right to poison the air of another person because the smoke is being produced in their “own home”. The right to breathe in one’s own home trumps the right to produce noxious gasses – which I contend isn’t a right at all. There are laws against activities that are a public nuisance or health hazard, even if done in one’s “own home”. There are many things one cannot do in one’s own home.

The smoke from balconies goes directly into the homes of others, forcing them to breathe in toxic fumes. The smokers control when they smoke – often every 15 minutes. They selfishly go onto the balcony to avoid contaminating their own homes, but smoking on the balcony, patio, or deck in close dwelling situations like apartments, condos, row houses, and townhouses contaminates the homes of others. In seconds, the neighbor’s home is filled with carcinogens. Secondhand smoke is a proven killer. Since their rights have been violated, the only choice the neighbor has is to keep their unit sealed tight from fresh air, which creates a hardship and still does not entirely block the smoke from entering their home. And it goes without saying, they can’t use their own balcony, patio, or deck because of their neighbor’s hazardous actions.

And even if the smoker smokes indoors, this too does not block the smoke from entering the neighbors’ homes. Smoking indoors often causes deadly second-hand smoke to enter the homes of neighbors – here are all the places smoke can seep in from adjacent units. So the surrounding neighbors are forced to assume the certain devastating effects to their own health on the basis of their neighbor’s endangering actions.

From ASH:

Courts are now applying the same principles to secondhand tobacco smoke which they have long since applied to other dangerous — or even irritating — chemicals. We would not tolerate a situation where asbestos or benzene drifted into someone’s apartment, and we are now beginning to apply the same rule to tobacco smoke, which is likewise a known human carcinogen.”

A judge has awarded monetary damages to a nonsmoker against a neighbor who smoked in her own condominium. This is just the latest in a growing number of cases where smokers have been penalized for — or prohibited from — smoking in their own dwellings, says law professor John Banzhaf, whose organization assisted the plaintiff.

The Florida judge awarded damages based upon claims that smoke infiltrating from the neighbor?s condo unit caused her and her family medical problems, and sometimes even forced them to sleep elsewhere. The nonsmoker represented herself, with assistance from a national antismoking organization.

Plaintiff argued that when smoke drifted from her neighbor’s apartment into hers, it constituted trespass, nuisance, and breach of covenant, and the judge agreed on all three counts. In his final judgment order, Judge Robert Lee said “the facts of the instant case demonstrate an interference with property on numerous occasions that goes beyond mere inconvenience or customary conduct.” He awarded plaintiff $1,000, although future health damages are likely to be far greater.

Plaintiff’s smoke problem began when her neighbor, a smoker, brought in a tenant who also smoked. Tobacco smoke began to infiltrate her condo, as well as the condos of other neighbors. Efforts to block the smoke physically or through filtration failed. Several times, she and her family, who suffer from respiratory allergies, were forced to sleep elsewhere, and on one occasion the secondhand smoke actually triggered the smoke detector.

“This is an important precedent,”said Chris Bostic, General Counsel of ASH, who worked with the plaintiff in preparing the case. “Hopefully this will spur a wider judicial recognition that tobacco smoke is not merely a nuisance, but a deadly soup of chemicals. ASH is the nation?s oldest anti-smoking and nonsmokers’ rights organization.”

Actually, notes Banzhaf, this victory is only the latest in a series of cases where nonsmokers were able to successfully sue smokers when smoke from their rental apartment or condo drifted or recirculated into a nonsmoker’s apartment. ASH maintains a listing of such cases, and provides assistance to nonsmokers wishing to bring legal action.

Indeed, in other related situations, courts in more than a dozen states have ruled that smoking around a child — even in one’s own home — can be grounds for the loss of custody. Moreover, in hundreds of cases judges have issued orders prohibiting such smoking — which is increasingly being considered a form of “child abuse,” “child neglect,” or “reckless endangerment.” In addition, three states have banned smoking in the home where a foster child is present, and several more are considering it.

“This is clear evidence,” says Banzhaf, “that a man’s home is no longer his castle when it comes to smoking. Courts are now applying the same principles to secondhand tobacco smoke which they have long since applied to other dangerous — or even irritating — chemicals. We would not tolerate a situation where asbestos or benzene drifted into someone’s apartment, and we are now beginning to apply the same rule to tobacco smoke, which is likewise a known human carcinogen.

Breathing clean air is not an option, it’s a necessity. No one has the right to endanger the health of another in their own home on an ongoing basis.

You want to smoke? Then make sure it stays your problem instead of becoming everyone else’s.

More Reading:
Smoking in Apartments and Condos is Illegal
Smoke Free Environments Law Project
Tobacco.org
Tobacco Control
Smoke Free Apartments
Cancer.org: Secondhand Smoke
ASH





Reference
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Quotations
Life

"Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear." ~ Zora Neale Hurston

"Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I've had my share. But whatever happens to you... you have got to not forget to laugh." ~ Katharine Hepburn

"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song." ~ Maya Angelou

"If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time." ~ Edith Wharton

"Mistakes are the dues one pays for a full life." ~ Sophia Loren

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." ~ Albert Einstein

Women

"For most of history, Anonymous was a woman." ~ Virginia Woolf

"Woman must not be awed by that which has been built up around her; she must reverence that woman in her which struggles for expression." ~ Margaret Sanger

"Probably, hanging onto the past brings more destruction than any other single cause... It's the Muslim fundamentalists who worship the past and ignore the reformist spirit with which Muhammad viewed women. It's the backward-looking Christian literalists who interpret religious teachings in a way that consolidates their power." ~ Gloria Steinem

"'Inherent differences' between men and women, we have come to appreciate, remain cause for celebration, but not for denigration of the members of either sex or for artificial constraints on an individual's opportunity." ~ Ruth Bader Ginsberg

"Feminism is and always has been about women acting in the world as full-fledged citizens, as real participants in the world of ideas and policy and history." ~ Susan Faludi

"...remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors... If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation." ~ Abigail Adams

"Bloody treason, murderous act
Not by women were designed.
Bells o'erthrown nor churches sacked
Speak not ill of womenkind."
~ Gearoid Iarla Fitzgerald

"We are coming down from our pedestal and up from the laundry room. We want an equal share in government and we mean to get it." ~ Bella Abzug

"Too often the great decisions are originated and given form in bodies made up wholly of men, or so completely dominated by them that whatever of special value women have to offer is shunted aside without expression." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

"There cannot be true democracy unless women's voices are heard. There cannot be true democracy unless women are given the opportunity to take responsibility for their own lives." ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton

"Of my two 'handicaps' being female put more obstacles in my path than being black." ~ Shirley Chisholm

"Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company?" ~ Zora Neale Hurston

"If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse gift will find a fitting place." ~ Margaret Mead

Nature

"Eventually, all things merge into one; and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs..." ~ Norman Maclean

"There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example - where had they gone?... It was a spring without voices." ~ Rachel Carson

"If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men." ~ St. Francis of Assisi

"I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men." ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

"God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but He cannot save them from fools." ~ John Muir

"We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it... Our delight in the sunshine on the deep-bladed grass to-day might be no more than the faint perception of wearied souls, if it were not for the sunshine and the grass in the far-off years which still live in us, and transform our perception into love." ~ George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans)

"Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life." ~ Rachel Carson

"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world." ~ John Muir

Freedom

"The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object." ~ Thomas Jefferson

"A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood of ideas in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people." ~ John F. Kennedy

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." ~ James Madison

"When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion." ~ C. P. Snow

"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." ~ Albert Einstein

"Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." ~ William Pitt

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." ~ Benjamin Franklin

"No matter how big a nation is, it is no stronger than its weakest people, and as long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you might otherwise." ~ Marian Anderson

"Being pro-choice is trusting the individual to make the right decision for herself and her family, and not entrusting that decision to anyone wearing the authority of government in any regard." ~ Hllary Rodham Clinton

Truth

"Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

"If somebody tells you you ought to quit, it's because they're afraid you won't." ~ Bill Clinton

"The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." ~ Robert F. Kennedy

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Find things that shine and move toward them." ~ Mia Farrow

"The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me? But the good Samaritan reversed the question: If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?" ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Abuse of Power

"We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth in a few hands, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis

"Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things." ~ Russell Baker

"O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength; But it is tyrannous to use it like a giant." ~ William Shakespeare

"I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be." ~ Thomas Jefferson

Violence

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

"When men talk about defense, they always claim to be protecting women and children, but they never ask the women and children what they think." ~ Patricia Schroeder

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

"What difference does it make to the dead whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?" ~ Mohandas Gandhi

"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind... War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today." ~ John F. Kennedy

"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." ~ Jesus

"Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children." ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

"When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?" ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent." ~ Mohandas Gandhi

"The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hypocrisy

"And thus I clothe my naked villany with odd old ends stol'n forth of holy writ, and seem a saint when most I play the devil." ~ William Shakespeare

"And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing... in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men... But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret..." ~ Jesus

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, ... legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state." ~ Thomas Jefferson

"Persecution is not an original feature in any religion, but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law." ~ Thomas Paine

"I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That's a decision that's up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right.... There is no place in this country for practicing religion in politics." ~ Barry Goldwater

Politics

"I never was surer of my position that no self-respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores her political rights." ~ Susan B. Anthony

"All political movements are like this - we are in the right, everyone else is in the wrong. The people on our own side who disagree with us are heretics, and they start becoming enemies. With it comes an absolute conviction of your own moral superiority. There's oversimplification in everything, and a terror of flexibility." ~ Doris Lessing

"In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take." ~ Adlai Stevenson

"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." ~ H.L. Mencken

Pretended Patriotism

"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism." ~ George Washington

"Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!" ~ Albert Einstein

"True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else." ~ Clarence Darrow

"When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." ~ George Orwell

"To (say) that we are to stand by the president right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but it's morally treasonable to the American public." ~ Theodore Roosevelt
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