ONE FOR THE PEOPLE.(A SECTION)(Editorial)

The adjournment of the Florida Legislature early Saturday marked a stunning defeat for the tobacco industry because the expiration of the 1996 session ended any chance repealing a bill that slipped through in the final hours of the 1994 session and was signed into law by Gov. Lawton Chiles.

That law made it easier to sue tobacco companies for the death and suffering inflicted by their products. The law was designed to invalidate some lines of defense previously available to the industry. Whether the law will prove successful will be decided in court.

In its 1995 session both houses of the legislature voted to repeal the law they had passed in 1994, arguing …