Mealey's Tobacco
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February 09, 2023
FDA Appeals Vacatur Of New Tobacco Warnings Rule To 5th Circuit
TYLER, Texas — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is appealing to the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals a Texas district court’s ruling vacating its new graphic warnings rule for tobacco products, which the court found violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by requiring manufacturers to place large photographic images depicting the health risks of smoking on product labels.
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February 08, 2023
Judge Issues Written Order Granting Preliminary Approval To $225M Juul Settlement
SAN FRANCISCO — The California federal judge overseeing multidistrict litigation against Juul Labs Inc. (JLI) and its affiliates recently issued a written order granting 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 and wrote that he would certify a “settlement class” encompassing other previously certified classes.
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February 07, 2023
Jurors Reject Claims Against Tobacco Companies For Smoker’s Death From Lung Cancer
BOSTON — A Massachusetts state court jury has returned a defense verdict in favor of two tobacco companies sued by the widower of a dead smoker after rejecting his claims that the companies deceived the smoker into getting hooked as a teenager in the 1960s, which one tobacco company argued was disproven by the widower’s testimony that cigarette pack warnings had “no effect” on the smoker’s habit. VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.
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February 07, 2023
Smoker’s Sister Seeks Attorney Fees After Defeat At Florida Supreme Court
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A dead smoker’s sister argues in a brief to the Florida Supreme Court that she is entitled to appellate attorney fees under Florida’s proposal for settlement (PFS) statute despite the court’s Jan. 5 affirmance of an appellate panel’s reversal of a jury’s punitive $16 million damages award in her favor because the court left intact a compensatory damages award that she says is far enough above her PFS to trigger the statute.
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February 06, 2023
Altria Tells 9th Circuit It Isn’t Liable For Juul MDL Class Claims
SAN FRANCISCO — Tobacco company Altria Group Inc. and its subsidiaries in an opening brief to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals say a trial court wrongly certified two classes bringing claims against it for violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) as part of the multidistrict litigation against e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc. (JLI), writing that the claims arise out of sales of “JUUL products that Altria never designed, manufactured, or sold.”
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February 01, 2023
Jury Awards $6M To Dead Smoker’s Children In Engle Trial
MIAMI — A Florida state court jury found that a dead smoker was an Engle class member and awarded the smoker’s two children $6 million in damages after finding that, contrary to a tobacco company’s arguments, her chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) manifested during the Engle class membership period. VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.
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January 31, 2023
Rival Nicotine Pouch Makers Settle Trade Secrets Dispute
LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge recently wrote in a minute entry that two lawsuits pertaining to a trade secrets and patent dispute over the manufacturing and selling of nicotine pouches are resolved after the Swedish and American companies involved informed the court during a final pretrial conference that they have resolved all of their remaining disputes over the alleged misuse of trade secrets.
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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.