Friday, Oct. 10, 1997 | 1:29 a.m.
The lawsuit, filed by Tony Badillo and eight other dealers in U.S. District Court in Reno, alleges the tobacco companies lied about the addictive nature of nicotine and the ill health effects of breathing secondhand cigarette smoke.
The complaint against 17 tobacco companies and organizations, including R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Brown & Williamson and the Tobacco Institute, seeks compensatory damages and a finding that the case qualifies as a class action lawsuit.
The complaint suggests that upward of 45,000 casino dealers working in Nevada could potentially become part of the legal action.
"Through a fraudulent course of conduct that has spanned decades, the defendants have manufactured, promoted and sold cigarettes to tens of millions of Americans, knowing but denying and concealing that their cigarettes were dangerous and toxic," the complaint says.
Badillo, a Las Vegas resident who has worked as a dealer for 40 years, said the main purpose of the lawsuit is to get medical monitoring for dealers who have had years of exposure to secondhand smoke.
Badillo, who is also president of the 4,500-member Nevada Casino Dealers Association, said he used to smoke but quit about 20 years ago.
Officials with the Tobacco Institute and R.J. Reynolds could not be reached Thursday for a reaction to the lawsuit, which is similar to one now going on in Florida filed by 60,000 current and former flight attendants.
That case, which went to trial in July, could cost the tobacco companies an estimated $5 billion. It was the first tobacco class action case to reach trial, and the first secondhand smoke trial.
The lawsuit filed by the dealers may have been restricted by a proposed $368 billion nationwide settlement between state and federal officials and the tobacco companies, but that deal was scuttled by President Clinton in September.
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