Mealey's Tobacco

  • May 04, 2023

    Judge: Intervenor’s Bid To Join Cigar Rivals’ $20M Sanctions Fight Is Untimely

    LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge denied as untimely a motion to intervene by a litigation funder that purchased an interest in a $44 million judgment awarded to a cigarillo maker for antitrust and breach of contract claims against another tobacco company, writing that it should have intervened after the judgment was vacated in 2019 due to fraud by the cigarillo company’s CEO.

  • May 04, 2023

    Cuban Tobacco Company Says Cigar Competitor Can’t Fight Trademark’s Cancellation

    ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Cuba’s state-owned tobacco company filed its answer and affirmative defenses in Virginia federal court to an American cigar company’s appeal seeking the reversal and vacatur of a Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) decision canceling its trademarks, arguing that the American company is barred from challenging the ruling based on a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling and the American company’s decades of use of a trademark that originated in Cuba.

  • May 04, 2023

    Jury Rejects Smoker With Bladder Cancer’s Claims Against Tobacco Company

    SOCORRO, N.M. — A New Mexico state court jury unanimously rejected all claims brought by a smoker and his wife against a tobacco company and a local retailer for causing him to develop now-terminal bladder cancer after smoking for 25 years.  VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.

  • May 03, 2023

    Altria Sues United States For $106M In Taxes Allegedly Overpaid On Foreign Shareholding

    RICHMOND, Va. — Tobacco company Altria Group Inc. says in a lawsuit filed in Virginia federal court that the United States owes it roughly $106 million in overpaid income taxes the U.S. Internal Revenue Service “erroneously collected” based on taxation of its shares held in a multinational brewing and beverage company.

  • April 28, 2023

    Cigar Groups Say New FDA Manufacturing Rules Will Harm Premium Cigar Makers

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two cigar industry organizations filed a notice of supplemental authority in a District of Columbia federal court where they are seeking to “vacate and permanently enjoin” Food and Drug Administration rules regulating premium cigars, writing that “[t]he absence of vacatur is signing up this Court’s docket for” future challenges to the FDA’s newest proposed rule requiring allegedly burdensome new manufacturing standards for tobacco products including premium cigars.

  • April 28, 2023

    Judge: Tribal Companies Need Not Pay Escrow For Tobacco Sales On Reservation

    OMAHA, Neb. — A Nebraska federal judge on April 27 granted in part a motion for summary judgment filed by two entities that are subsidiaries of a Winnebago Tribe-owned company, finding that the state may not collect escrow payments from tobacco sales on the Winnebago Reservation but also granting in part the state’s motion for summary judgment and finding escrow payments required for sales on another tribe’s reservation.

  • April 27, 2023

    British American Tobacco To Pay $634M For Concealed Sales Into North Korea

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge on April 26 entered an amended judgment ordering a British tobacco company’s Singaporean subsidiary to pay $629 million in fines and forfeiture, shortly after the parent company agreed to a $5.3 million settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), all in relation to the companies’ activities selling tobacco leaf into North Korea in violation of U.S. sanctions.

  • April 21, 2023

    Request For $34M In Disgorged Profits Rejected In Rolling Paper Row 

    CHICAGO — A rolling paper company deemed liable by jurors for copyright and trademark infringement that nonetheless prevailed on its own claim for common-law unfair competition will not be awarded disgorged profits, a federal judge in Illinois ruled.

  • April 20, 2023

    Judge Won’t Dismiss Dead Smoker’s Family’s Suit Against Tobacco Companies

    SANTA ANA, Calif. — A California federal judge on April 19 granted in part and denied in part tobacco companies’ motion to dismiss a family’s personal injury lawsuit against them for causing the father’s death from laryngeal cancer, dismissing three siblings’ claims for lack of standing but finding that the wife and daughter sufficiently alleged a product defect.

  • April 20, 2023

    Jury Awards No Damages To Smoker’s Family In Retrial On Punitives

    MIAMI — A Florida jury awarded no damages to the family of a deceased smoker during the retrial of the punitive damages phase in the family’s Engle wrongful death action, two years after a separate jury awarded a $2 million punitive damages verdict that was later vacated by the judge due to prejudicial closing arguments by the family’s lawyer.

  • April 19, 2023

    8th Circuit Won’t Rehear Challenge To City’s Flavored Tobacco Ban

    ST. LOUIS — The Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on April 18 denied a petition filed by tobacco companies and retailers for en banc or panel rehearing of their challenge to a Minnesota city’s ordinance banning the sale of all flavored tobacco products, despite their argument that a panel’s ruling upholding the ban conflicts with U.S. Supreme Court precedent and could cause “regulatory bedlam.”

  • April 18, 2023

    5th Circuit Orders Response To FDA Petition For Rehearing Of Menthol Vape Ban

    NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on April 17 ordered a response from a tobacco company to the Food and Drug Administration’s petition for rehearing after the Fifth Circuit stayed FDA’s marketing denial order (MDO) banning sales of the company’s menthol-flavored e-cigarette products, in which FDA asks that the case be reheard en banc with another e-cigarette case in which en banc review is pending.

  • April 14, 2023

    Federal Circuit Reverses Dismissal, Finds E-Cigarette Patent Sufficiently Pleaded

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed a district court’s rulings dismissing a consumer products company’s e-cigarette patent infringement claim against a tobacco company as “baseless,” denying it leave to amend and awarding the tobacco company attorney fees after finding that the court improperly found the pleadings insufficient.

  • April 13, 2023

    Juul Enters Settlements Worth $470M In States’ Youth Vaping Suits

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The attorney generals of the District of Columbia and six states on April 12 announced a $462 million settlement of their claims against Juul Labs Inc. for illegally marketing its e-cigarettes to minors and causing a youth vaping epidemic, just days after JLI settled claims brought by the state of West Virginia for $7.9 million, bringing the total value of JLI’s settlements with states and territories to date to more than $1 billion.

  • April 13, 2023

    Florida Judge Enters $8.1M Judgment In Dead Smoker’s Kids’ Favor After Engle Trial

    MIAMI — A Florida state court judge entered judgment in the amount of $8.1 million in compensatory damages against a tobacco company for the three children of a smoker who died in 1996 from lung cancer after smoking two to three packs of cigarettes a day for more than 30 years.  VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.

  • April 13, 2023

    Amici Weigh In Ahead Of En Banc 5th Circuit’s Review Of Flavored Vapes’ FDA Ban

    NEW ORLEANS — Several amici curiae have filed briefs to the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals where an en banc rehearing of two flavored vape companies’ petitions for review of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s decisions to ban the companies’ e-cigarette and e-liquid products is pending, with the most recent brief by public health groups arguing that the FDA’s marketing denial order (MDO) was “not arbitrary and capricious."

  • April 13, 2023

    FTC Extends Deadline In Altria, Juul Appeal After Companies Part Ways

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Trade Commission extended its deadline to rule on an appeal of an administrative ruling recommending dismissal of the FTC’s antitrust claims against tobacco company Altria Group Inc. and e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc. (JLI) to give it more time to consider Altria and JLI’s recent motions seeking to dismiss the litigation as moot in light of Altria voluntarily unwinding its investment in JLI and seeking to discuss a potential settlement.

  • April 11, 2023

    9th Circuit Urged To Affirm Class Certification Against Altria In E-Cigarette MDL

    SAN FRANCISCO — The members of two certified classes bringing claims against tobacco company Altria Group Inc. and its subsidiaries urge the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in an appellee brief to affirm certification of claims against Altria for allegedly causing a youth vaping crisis as an investor in e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc. (JLI), even though multidistrict litigation claims against JLI and its executives have since been settled.

  • April 11, 2023

    MDL Judge Denies Altria’s Bid For Summary Judgment In San Francisco Schools’ Suit

    SAN FRANCISCO — The California federal judge overseeing multidistrict litigation against tobacco company Altria Group Inc. and its subsidiaries on April 10 denied Altria’s motion for summary judgment on claims brought against it by the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) for negligence, public nuisance and violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act by causing a “vaping crisis,” which will be heard in an upcoming bellwether trial.

  • April 03, 2023

    Panel Affirms ITC Decision In Full In Win For R.J. Reynolds Tobacco

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A limited exclusion order barring Philip Morris USA Inc. and its affiliates from importing various tobacco heating products that infringe two R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. patents was upheld March 31 by the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which said a challenge to the validity of the patents fails.

  • March 29, 2023

    Illinois Panel Finds Jurisdiction Over Battery Maker In Exploding Vape Suit

    CHICAGO — An Illinois appellate panel on March 28 affirmed a trial court’s personal jurisdiction over a Korean battery-maker’s subsidiary in a personal injury lawsuit brought by a man who claims that he was injured by an exploding e-cigarette device after finding that the company sold thousands of its batteries into Illinois for use in other products.

  • March 29, 2023

    Texas Supreme Court Questions Battery Maker On Jurisdiction In Exploding Vape Case

    AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Supreme Court during oral arguments questioned a Korean battery-maker and its U.S. subsidiary about their argument that a trial court lacked personal jurisdiction over them in a personal injury lawsuit brought by a man who was burned after a battery they manufactured exploded in his e-cigarette device, which the man’s counsel argues was a “foreseeable” use of the product.

  • March 24, 2023

    5th Circuit Keeps RJR Menthol Vapes On Market, Cites FDA’s ‘Secret’ Flavor Ban

    NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on March 23 granted two consolidated petitions to stay the Food and Drug Administration’s marketing denial order (MDO) banning sales of a tobacco company’s menthol-flavored e-cigarette products pending appeal after finding the company likely to succeed in its argument that the FDA imposed a “secret” ban of all flavored e-cigarettes without notifying e-cigarette manufacturers.

  • March 22, 2023

    Tobacco Companies’ Suit Challenging California’s Flavor Ban Dismissed

    SAN DIEGO — A California federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by tobacco companies and a retailers’ association against the California attorney general and San Diego County district attorney challenging a statewide ban of sales of flavored tobacco products, finding that the ban does not violate the dormant commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution and that the plaintiffs’ preemption argument is moot under Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals precedent.

  • March 14, 2023

    Rehearing Sought Before 8th Circuit In Challenge To City’s Flavored Tobacco Ban

    ST. LOUIS — Tobacco companies and retailers on March 13 petitioned the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals for en banc or panel rehearing of their challenge to a Minnesota city’s ordinance banning the sale of all flavored tobacco products, arguing that a panel’s recent ruling upholding the ban conflicts with U.S. Supreme Court precedent and could cause “regulatory bedlam.”

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