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Mealey's Tobacco

  • February 13, 2023

    Judge Dismisses Nicotine Pouch Makers’ Settled Trade Secrets Row

    LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge entered an order granting a joint stipulation by Swedish and American companies involved in a trade secrets and patent dispute over the manufacturing and selling of nicotine pouches to voluntarily dismiss two pending lawsuits between them with prejudice, with each party agreeing to bear its own attorney fees and costs.

  • January 17, 2023

    RJR Appeals Royalties, Patent Rulings In $95M E-Cigarette Design Row

    GREENSBORO, N.C. — R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. (RJR) filed notice that it is appealing a district court’s judgment against it, denial of its motion for a new trial and grant of Altria Client Services LLC’s motion for ongoing royalties on RJR’s Vuse Alto e-cigarette, after a jury ordered RJR to pay more than $95 million for infringing three of Altria’s patents for pod-based vape technology.

  • February 10, 2023

    Cigar Maker Moves For $20M In Sanctions From Rival For Fraud In Antitrust Suit

    LOS ANGELES — A cigar maker that previously won the vacatur of a $44 million verdict in favor of a rival cigarillo maker and its parent company after proving the verdict was based on fraudulent evidence recently moved in a California federal court for sanctions of nearly $20 million representing its attorney fees and costs incurred defending against the rivals’ “bad-faith conduct throughout this litigation.”

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.”

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.”

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.”

  • 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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