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Mealey's Tobacco

  • October 04, 2024

    Consumer Says Synthetic Nicotine E-Cig Maker Deceptively Marketed To Youth

    NEW YORK — An e-cigarette consumer filed a putative nationwide class action against the manufacturer of Puff Bar e-cigarettes in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, arguing that it unfairly markets its flavored, disposable, synthetic nicotine products to young people and deceptively labels the nicotine content of its products.

  • October 04, 2024

    High Court Grants FDA Petition Challenging Forum In Menthol Vape Suit

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 4 granted the Food and Drug Administration’s petition for a writ of certiorari challenging a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel’s finding of jurisdiction over a challenge to an FDA ban of menthol-flavored e-cigarette products brought by R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. (RJRV) and affiliated entities, which the FDA described as “blatant forum shopping” not supported by the Tobacco Control Act (TCA).

  • October 04, 2024

    Vape Battery Explosion Victim Urges Panel To Uphold $1.6M Verdict

    WILMINGTON, N.C. — A man burned when an e-cigarette device’s battery exploded in his pocket filed an appellee brief urging the North Carolina Court of Appeals to reject arguments for reversal of a jury verdict in his favor worth more than $1.6 million, arguing that the jury heard sufficient evidence to hold a battery distributor liable for his injuries.

  • October 04, 2024

    Juul Founders, Board Members Accused Of Diluting Shares For Personal Profit

    WILMINGTON, Del. — Two Juul Labs Inc. (JLI) stockholders in a derivative complaint filed in Delaware Chancery Court accuse JLI’s co-founders, members of its board of directors and their special investment vehicles of breach of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment for allegedly orchestrating the dilution of the value of JLI shares before giving their investment vehicles 1.2 billion JLI shares at little cost in an alleged “windfall.”

  • October 03, 2024

    Flavored Vape Wholesalers, Deny New York’s Nuisance Claims After Removal

    NEW YORK — Sellers of flavored disposable vapes and the city of New York filed a joint status report in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York updating the court on their arguments in the city’s suit against them for public nuisance and violation of state and federal tobacco laws, which the defendants say are insufficiently pleaded, deficient due to lack of standing and inapplicable to sales between distributors.

  • October 03, 2024

    Putative Class Plaintiff Drops Defendant From Nicotine Pouch Youth Marketing Suit

    HARTFORD, Conn. — A consumer bringing a putative class action suit accusing Philip Morris International Inc. (PM) of violating Florida consumer protection statutes by targeting youth and deceptively advertising Zyn nicotine pouches as a “safer and healthier alternative to smoking” on Oct. 2 filed a notice of voluntary dismissal of co-defendant Swedish Match North America LLC after it moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.

  • September 30, 2024

    E-Cig MDL Plaintiffs Seek Fees After Altria Settles Tribal Claims

    SAN FRANCISCO — The last remaining claims in a California federal court multidistrict litigation against e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc. (JLI), tobacco company Altria Group Inc. and its subsidiaries have been settled, according to a Sept. 27 filing by the plaintiffs’ fee committee asking the court to approve fees and costs of roughly $1.2 million in connection with the settlement of Indian tribes’ claims against Altria.

  • September 27, 2024

    Judge: Loper Bright Argument In ERISA Tobacco Surcharge Row Merits Consideration

    COLUMBUS, Ohio — After supplemental briefing in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act case the U.S. Department of Labor filed over a tobacco surcharge wellness program (TSWP), an Ohio federal judge on Sept. 26 denied dismissal without prejudice, saying the defendants’ argument regarding the impact of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo “warrants full consideration.”

  • September 26, 2024

    Tobacco Companies Urge Dismissal Of Nicotine Pouch Youth Marketing Claims

    HARTFORD, Conn. — Philip Morris International Inc. (PM) and Swedish Match North America LLC filed motions in Connecticut federal court urging dismissal of a Zyn nicotine pouch consumer’s putative class action suit accusing them violating Florida consumer protection statutes by targeting youth and deceptively advertising the pouch products as a “safer and healthier alternative to smoking.”

  • September 10, 2024

    Judge Releases Reasons For Rejecting Cigar Maker’s Tobacco Control Act Challenge

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge on Sept. 9 issued a partly redacted version of his previously sealed opinion explaining his decision to deny a flavored cigar manufacturer’s motion for summary judgment on its claims for vacatur of the entire deeming rule issued by the Food and Drug Administration under the Tobacco Control Act (TCA) and for an order requiring the FDA to resolve the manufacturer’s pending substantial-equivalence report (SER).

  • September 10, 2024

    Tobacco Company Tells Panel Malpractice Settlement Precludes Widow’s Engle Claims

    MIAMI — A tobacco company filed an answer brief to the Fourth District Florida Court of Appeal urging it to affirm summary judgment on a smoker’s widow’s wrongful death claim against it for causing her husband’s lung cancer and death, in which it says the court correctly found all claims against it precluded by the dead husband’s settlement of medical malpractice claims against his cancer doctor.

  • September 09, 2024

    8th Circuit Won’t Reconsider State Regulation Of Tribe’s External Tobacco Sales

    ST. LOUIS — The Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Sept. 6 denied a petition for panel or en banc rehearing filed by two subsidiaries of a Winnebago Tribe-owned company, which argued that the Circuit Court erred in its interest-balancing analysis before affirming Nebraska’s right to enforce Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) regulations over its tobacco sales to nonmembers.

  • September 09, 2024

    Judge Dismisses Workers’ Challenge To Casinos’ Indoor Smoking Exception

    TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey state court judge granted a motion to dismiss a complaint filed by two workers’ groups seeking to block Atlantic City, N.J., casinos from continuing to allow smoking indoors under a casino-specific exemption to a state law banning indoor smoking, finding the plaintiffs failed to plead a state right to safety and did not overcome Atlantic City’s “special constitutional status” which permits certain exemptions from state law.

  • September 06, 2024

    Amici States, Health Groups Urge High Court To Affirm FDA’s Flavored E-Cig Bans

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Public health groups, 16 members of Congress, 19 states and the District of Columbia all urge the U.S. Supreme Court in amicus curiae briefs to rule in favor of the Food and Drug Administration in its challenge to the en banc Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ vacatur of FDA bans of certain flavored e-cigarette products, writing that the FDA properly banned the products due to public health concerns over youth vaping.

  • September 05, 2024

    Washington State Panel Upholds Arbitrators’ MSA Payment Allocation Order

    SEATTLE — A Washington state appellate panel affirmed a trial court’s ruling upholding an arbitral panel’s 2022 order vacating an alternative procedure for tobacco manufacturers and states to allocate certain payments under a master settlement agreement (MSA), finding that the panel did not exceed its authority in determining that the MSA’s allocation procedures were unambiguous and could not be replaced by arbitrators.

  • September 04, 2024

    FDA, Health Groups Dispute FDA’s Duty To Report Status Of E-Cig Reviews

    BALTIMORE — Health groups and doctors on Sept. 3 filed a brief in Maryland federal court urging the court to maintain its two-year-old order requiring the Food and Drug Administration to provide the court status reports on its progress reviewing premarket tobacco applications (PMTAs) for top-selling e-cigarette brands, arguing that “unreviewed applications include JUUL and other products that have attracted and addicted young people for years.”

  • September 03, 2024

    Minor Injured By E-Cig Battery Explosion Appeals Dismissal To 7th Circuit

    CHICAGO — A minor who was injured when lithium-ion batteries intended for use with an e-cigarette device exploded in his pocket filed an amended docketing statement to the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals asserting the grounds for jurisdiction over his appeal of an Indiana federal judge’s ruling dismissing his personal injury claims against a Korean battery maker.

  • September 03, 2024

    Judge Rejects Cigar Maker’s Bid For Vacatur Of Tobacco Control Act Regulations

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge on Aug. 30 denied a flavored cigar manufacturer’s motion for summary judgment on its claims for vacatur of the entire deeming rule issued by the Food and Drug Administration under the Tobacco Control Act (TCA) subjecting new tobacco productions to regulation, for vacatur only as to cigars and for an order requiring the FDA to resolve the manufacturer’s pending substantial-equivalence report (SER).

  • August 27, 2024

    FDA Tells High Court It Followed Tobacco Laws In Banning Flavored E-Cigs

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Food and Drug Administration in an Aug. 26 merits brief tells the U.S. Supreme Court that it was acting in compliance with the Tobacco Control Act (TCA) when it banned flavored e-cigarette products as not “appropriate for the protection of public health” (APPH) and urges the high court to reverse the vacatur of its bans by the en banc Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

  • August 26, 2024

    FDA Seeks Extension In Tobacco Companies’ High Court Challenge To Graphic Warnings

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Food and Drug Administration and its federal codefendants on Aug. 23 asked the U.S. Supreme Court for an additional month to respond to a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by tobacco companies and retailers, who are challenging the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ ruling upholding the Food and Drug Administration’s new graphic warnings requirement on tobacco products as a violation of their free speech rights.

  • August 21, 2024

    ‘Lottery’ Voir Dire Didn’t Taint Engle Trial, Tobacco Company Tells Florida Panel

    MIAMI — A tobacco company in an Aug. 21 appellee brief urges a Florida appellate court to affirm a jury verdict finding that a dead smoker’s son was time-barred from bringing claims against it for causing his mother’s chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and death, writing that the court’s jury selection procedures and its use of a lottery system were proper.

  • August 20, 2024

    Florida Supreme Court Quashes Reversal Of Husband’s $157M Engle Verdict

    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court granted a petition for review filed by a dead smoker’s widower and quashed an appellate panel’s reversal of a $157 million Engle verdict in his favor and remanded to the panel for further proceedings after issuing a recent opinion addressing the availability of damages to a spouse under the state’s Wrongful Death Act.

  • August 16, 2024

    Federal Circuit Vacates Preliminary Injunction In E-Cigarette Trademark Dispute

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in Florida was wrong to issue a preliminary injunction against a Chinese e-cigarette manufacturer and its American wholesalers in a trademark and patent dispute brought by an American e-cigarette maker, a panel of judges in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held, saying that the judge did not adequately consider the Chinese company’s argument that the American manufacturer did not have a valid claim to the contested mark because it did not seek approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its product.

  • August 08, 2024

    Judge Finds Montana Preempted From Banning Indian Tobacco Company

    GREAT FALLS, Mont. — A Montana federal judge ruled that federal law preempted Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen from removing Grand River Enterprises Six Nations Ltd. (GRE) from the state’s approved tobacco sellers list because the AG improperly took action based on an alleged violation of federal law.

  • August 06, 2024

    Tribe’s Internal Tobacco Sales Exempt From MSA Enforcement, 8th Circuit Rules

    ST. LOUIS — An Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed in part a Nebraska federal judge’s ruling enjoining the state from enforcing Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) regulations on tobacco sales by two subsidiaries of a Winnebago Tribe-owned company as to tribal member-to-member sales, but said the state can regulate sales to nonmembers.