Performance Food Will Pay $4.7 Million to Exit Smoker Fee Suit

Performance Food Group Inc. signed a $4.7 million class settlement with tobacco-using employees who said they were wrongly charged penalties for health-care coverage without being given a legally compliant way to have the charges waived.

The deal, which covers participants in Performance Food’s health plan who paid tobacco surcharges since September 2018, is among the first class settlements to be announced in the recent series of cases targeting companies that charge tobacco penalties in their health-care plans. Several cases have been allowed to advance, and a handful of employers have signed class-wide deals, including Bass Pro Group LLC for ...