Mealey's Tobacco
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January 30, 2023
9th Circuit Grants Summary Affirmance In California Flavored Tobacco Ban Fight
SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Jan. 27 granted summary affirmance as was sought by several tobacco companies and a retailers’ associations that brought a challenge to California’s voter-backed statewide ban on flavored tobacco products, which they seek to challenge before the U.S. Supreme Court as purportedly preempted under the Tobacco Control Act (TCA), 21 U.S.C. § 387p et seq.
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January 27, 2023
Jury Awards Smoker’s Widow $5M For Lung Cancer Death
MIAMI — A Florida state court jury in an Engle case awarded $5 million to the widow and estate of a dead smoker but apportioned 40% of fault for the smoker’s death to himself after the widow argued that he got hooked on cigarettes at age 14 while a tobacco company lawyer argued that the smoker disregarded certain health risks and also used drugs such as cocaine and marijuana. VIDEO OF THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.
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January 25, 2023
Tobacco Companies Deny Liability For Smoker’s Death From Lung Cancer At Trial
BOSTON — A lawyer for a dead smoker’s family told a Massachusetts state court jury during opening statements that the tobacco industry’s conspiracy to conceal the risks of smoking led to the smoker’s addiction and death, while two tobacco companies each denied any liability for the smoker’s cancer based on the period of her life that she spent smoking each company’s products. VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.
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January 25, 2023
Smoker Wasn’t Warned Of Addiction Risks, Jury Told In Engle Trial
MIAMI — The son of a dead smoker suing a tobacco company told a Florida state court jury during opening arguments that his mother wasn’t warned about the risk of addiction to cigarettes that caused her to smoke until she contracted chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), while the tobacco company’s lawyer said the smoker does not qualify as an Engle class member. VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.
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January 25, 2023
En Banc 5th Circuit Grants Rehearing Of Vape Companies’ Challenge To FDA Ban
NEW ORLEANS — The en banc Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals voted to grant en banc rehearing of two flavored vape companies’ petitions for review of the Food and Drug Administration’s decisions to ban the companies’ e-cigarette and e-liquid products, in a case in which the Fifth Circuit had first stayed enforcement of the FDA’s marketing denial order (MDO) before a split panel reversed course and denied the petitioners’ requests for review.
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January 23, 2023
Juul MDL Judge Grants Preliminary Approval To $225M Settlement
SAN FRANCISCO — The California federal judge overseeing multidistrict litigation against Juul Labs Inc. (JLI) and its affiliates at a Jan. 20 hearing granted preliminary approval to the MDL plaintiffs’ proposed $225 million settlement to adult and minor consumers nationwide who allegedly suffered economic loss due to JLI’s deceptive marketing, which is one of four settlements between JLI and the plaintiffs.
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January 20, 2023
Judge: Tobacco Companies’ Corrective Statements Deal Respects Retailers’ Rights
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge on Jan. 19 issued an opinion furnishing the reasoning for his prior approval of a consent order between tobacco companies, the United States and public health intervenors agreeing to the placement of “corrective statements” at retail point-of-sale (POS) displays warning customers of the dangers of tobacco use as was first ordered in 2006.
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January 10, 2023
Judge Dismisses Counterclaims, Third-Party Suits In New York Tribe’s Smoke Shop Row
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A New York federal judge on Jan. 9 mostly dismissed counterclaims filed against the Cayuga Nation by the operators of a non-tribal smoke shop on the nation’s reservation for shutting down the shop and dismissed the operators’ third-party complaints against a tribal official in their entirety because the operators failed to show that he was acting in his individual capacity when they were evicted from the shop.
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January 09, 2023
Judge Delays $117M Settlement Of Altria Shareholder Suit After Objections Filed
RICHMOND, Va. — A Virginia federal judge who preliminarily approved a $117 million settlement of shareholder claims against tobacco company Altria Group Inc. for harming the company by investing in Juul Labs Inc. (JLI) ordered the parties to file briefs responding to objections from nonparty shareholders including two health groups that say the settlement is “ineffective” and allows “individual Altria Defendants who caused the Company significant damage [to] get off scot-free.”
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January 09, 2023
Mistrial Declared In Dead Smoker’s Daughter’s Suit Against Tobacco Company
SANTA FE, N.M. — A mistrial was recently declared during jury deliberations in a lawsuit brought in New Mexico state court by the daughter of a late smoker who had accused a tobacco company of causing her father’s death from laryngeal cancer by defectively designing its cigarettes to be too addictive and too easily inhalable.
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January 06, 2023
Citing Media Leaks, Altria Demands Details Of Juul’s MDL Settlement
SAN FRANCISCO — Tobacco company Altria Group Inc. and its subsidiaries recently filed a motion in California federal court asking the judge overseeing federal multidistrict litigation against it and e-cigarette company Juul Labs Inc. (JLI) to order JLI to disclose the terms of its settlement of claims against it that leaked reports say is worth $1.7 billion and moved for a stay pending its appeal of a class certification order against it.
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January 06, 2023
Panel Affirms Jurisdiction Over Juul Cofounders In N.Y. Deceptive Marketing Suit
NEW YORK — A New York state appellate court panel on Jan. 5 affirmed a trial court’s denial of a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the state attorney general against the cofounders of Juul Labs Inc. (JLI) for allegedly marketing e-cigarettes to youth and creating a public nuisance, finding that the court’s personal jurisdiction is proper as the cofounders repeatedly traveled to New York while planning an allegedly illegal marketing scheme that targeted the city.
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January 05, 2023
Juul Enters $43 Million Settlement, Agrees To Reform Marketing, Texas AG Says
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Jan. 4 announced that Juul Labs Inc. (JLI) entered a $43 million settlement and agreed to new marketing restrictions to resolve claims brought against it by the state of Texas as part of a multistate investigation into JLI’s marketing, labeling and selling of its e-cigarette products in a manner that unlawfully targeted underage customers.
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January 05, 2023
Florida Supreme Court Upholds Reversal Of $16M Punitive Award To Smoker’s Estate
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court on Jan. 5 ruled 5-1 that an appellate panel properly reversed a $16 million punitive damages jury award to a deceased smoker’s estate because it was unreasonably greater than the $300,000 compensatory damages award, with a dissenting justice writing that the majority erred by concluding that the smoker’s death “is not a cognizable injury for purposes of punitive damages claims.”
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March 13, 2023
Florida Supreme Court Won’t Review Attorney Fees Award Reversal In Engle Case
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court has denied a dead smoker’s husband’s petition for review of a split appellate panel’s reversal of a trial court’s $2.5 million attorney fee award in his favor, which the panel deemed unreasonable because the award represented a risk of double recovery on top of attorney fees another tobacco company agreed to pay in a settlement of his claims against it.
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December 21, 2022
Juul MDL Plaintiffs Propose $225M Settlements For Economic Loss Claims
SAN FRANCISCO — Co-lead counsel representing plaintiffs in federal multidistrict litigation against Juul Labs Inc. (JLI) and its affiliates moved for preliminary approval of a proposed $225 million settlement to adult and minor consumers nationwide who allegedly suffered economic loss due to JLI’s deceptive marketing, which is one of four settlements between JLI and the plaintiffs.
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December 21, 2022
Expert Panel Flags Shortcomings In FDA’s Regulation Of E-Cigarettes
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Reagan-Udall Foundation’s Independent Expert Panel for Tobacco submitted its recommendations to the Food and Drug Administration regarding the Center for Tobacco Products (CTP), in which the experts cited stakeholder “concerns about a lack of clarity, transparency, and communication,” specifically regarding its regulation of e-cigarettes.
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December 15, 2022
Panel Affirms $2.5M Verdict Against Philip Morris Citing Evidence Of Reliance
MIAMI — A Florida appellate court panel on Dec. 14 affirmed a $2.5 million compensatory damages verdict to the widow of a smoker who died from lung cancer at age 57 after rejecting a tobacco company’s argument that the widow failed to present evidence that the smoker relied to his detriment on misinformation about the health risks of smoking disseminated by tobacco industry representatives.
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December 15, 2022
Juul To Pay $38.8M To Settle Pennsylvania’s Youth Marketing Suit
PHILADELPHIA — E-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc. (JLI) and Pennsylvania recently entered a consent judgment resolving claims brought by the state attorney general accusing JLI of illegally and deceptively marketing its products to youth, with JLI agreeing to pay $38.8 million to the state and to implement corporate reforms.
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December 14, 2022
4th Circuit Rejects Flavored Vape Makers’ Petition For Review Of FDA Ban
RICHMOND, Va. — In the latest blow to e-cigarette companies facing bans of their products, a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel denied a flavored vape company’s petition to vacate the Food and Drug Administration’s marketing denial order (MDO) banning sales of its products after finding that the FDA’s review was properly conducted and that the company failed to present evidence that the benefits of its products outweigh the “known risks to youth” they pose.
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December 13, 2022
Supreme Court Won’t Enjoin California’s Voter-Backed Ban On Flavored Tobacco
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 12 denied an emergency application filed by tobacco companies and a retailers’ association seeking a writ of injunction pending appeal to bar California’s flavored tobacco ban from going into effect while the applicants’ Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals challenge to the law remains pending.
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December 09, 2022
Judge Vacates FDA’s New Graphic Warnings Rule For Tobacco Products
TYLER, Texas — A Texas federal judge recently ruled that the Food and Drug Administration’s new graphic warnings rule for tobacco products violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and vacated the rule, after denying a government motion to dismiss or transfer a lawsuit filed by tobacco companies and retailers challenging the rule.
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December 07, 2022
California Urges Supreme Court Not To Delay Voter-Backed Ban On Flavored Tobacco
SAN DIEGO — California on Dec. 6 urged the U.S. Supreme Court to deny an emergency application filed by tobacco companies and a retailers’ association seeking an injunction barring the state from banning sales of flavored tobacco products, writing that “not a single court has agreed” with the applicants’ argument that the Tobacco Control Act (TCA) preempts such bans and that any delay to the ban “imperils the health of more young people in California with each passing day.”
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December 07, 2022
Tobacco Companies, U.S. End Dispute Over Court-Ordered ‘Corrective Statements’
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge on Dec. 6 issued a court order implementing an agreement among tobacco companies, the United States and public health intervenors to comply with a 2006 court order requiring the placement of “corrective statements” at retail point-of-sale (POS) displays warning customers of the dangers of tobacco use.
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December 07, 2022
Juul, MDL Plaintiffs Announce 4 Settlements Of Illegal Marketing Claims
SAN FRANCISCO — Juul Labs Inc. (JLI) and the co-lead counsel representing plaintiffs suing it in federal multidistrict litigation and a California state court coordinated proceeding announced Dec. 6 that they have reached four global settlements to resolve thousands of lawsuits against JLI for illegally marketing its products to youth and forcing government entities and tribes to divert resources to address youth vaping.