LEGAL FILE

Jury selection has begun in a lawsuit over a woman’s accidental death 2 1/2 years ago in a hot tub on Dustin Hoffman’s Roxbury, Conn., estate. Sheila Cruse Fionda, 43, was found floating face down in the hot tub at Hoffman’s estate in 1986. The actor was not there at the time and Fionda had gone out to dinner with the estate’s caretaker earlier. Police concluded that Ms. Fionda drowned accidentally, her blood-alcohol level being three times the legal limit for driving in Connecticut. Her former husband, A. Joseph Fionda, sued Hoffman, the property’s former caretaker, the tub installer and the manufacturer of its heater. The suit, which does not specify amount of damages sought, accuses Hoffman of failing to have the area of the hot tub fenced, failing to ensure that the water did not get too hot and failing to instruct the caretaker about the safe use of the tub.