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Mealey's Tobacco

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.
August 05, 2024
5th Circuit Vacates More FDA Marketing Denials For Flavored Vape Companies

NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated Food and Drug Administration marketing denial orders (MDOs) banning the products of five flavored vape companies after finding “no basis to distinguish this case” from an earlier en banc Fifth Circuit reversal of FDA flavored vape bans now pending before the U.S Supreme Court.
August 05, 2024
Florida High Court Won’t Review Engle Residency In $2.5M Win For Smoker’s Estate

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court on Aug. 2 denied two tobacco companies’ petition to review an appellate panel’s opinion affirming a $2.5 million verdict in favor of the estate of a smoker who died from lung cancer, declining to accept jurisdiction over the tobacco companies’ argument that the smoker was not an Engle member and primarily resided in New York.
August 02, 2024
Juul, Noteholders Settle Delaware Chancery Court Debt Conversion Row

WILMINGTON, Del. — A vice chancellor of the Delaware Chancery Court granted a joint stipulation settling all claims brought by a group of financial entities against Juul Labs Inc. (JLI) that had opposed a JLI plan to convert notes that they contended were worth $1.9 billion into less valuable equity in an alleged plan by “certain JUUL insiders to plunder the Company for their own benefit.”
August 02, 2024
Nicotine Pouch Consumer Files Putative Class Action Alleging False Youth Marketing

HARTFORD, Conn. — A consumer of Zyn nicotine pouches filed a putative class action in Connecticut federal court accusing Philip Morris International Inc. (PM) and Swedish Match North America LLC of violating Florida consumer protection statutes by targeting youth and deceptively advertising the products as a “safer and healthier alternative to smoking.”
July 30, 2024
Dead Smoker’s Kids Defend $6M Verdict Against Tobacco Company’s ‘Forgery’ Theory

MIAMI — A smoker’s children on Jan. 29 filed an answer brief in the Florida Third District Court of Appeal urging affirmance of a $6 million verdict against a tobacco company, arguing that the company’s argument that records of the dead smoker being diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) were forged is undercut by other evidence introduced at trial.
July 29, 2024
Tribe Defends PACT Act Challenge From DOJ’s Bid For Summary Judgment

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A Native American tribe’s on July 26 filed its opposition in California federal court to a motion for summary judgment filed by U.S. government agencies and officials, arguing that disputes of fact exist regarding the tribes’ claims that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives improperly seeks to deem the tribe out of compliance with the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act.
July 25, 2024
Magistrate Judge Denies Bid To Stay Discovery In UCL Suit Against Vape Sellers

SAN DIEGO — A California federal magistrate judge on July 24 denied a group of online e-cigarette retailers’ ex parte motion to stay discovery in a lawsuit brought against them along with several Chinese e-cigarette manufacturers by e-cigarette maker NJOY LLC, an Altria Group Inc. subsidiary, for allegedly violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and federal cigarette regulations by illegally selling “Elf Bar”-brand flavored disposable vapes (FDVs).
July 23, 2024
FDA Asks Court To Drop Required Status Reports On E-Cigarette Approvals

BALTIMORE — The Food and Drug Administration on July 22 filed a motion in Maryland federal court asking for relief from a two-year-old order requiring it to provide the court regular status reports on its progress reviewing premarket tobacco applications (PMTA) for top-selling e-cigarette brands, writing that the “obligation has now outlived its original purpose” and that it should not be required to file reports about progress on the final pending PMTA.
July 10, 2024
Flavored Vape Wholesalers Remove New York’s Suit After Injunction Sought

NEW YORK — Two sellers of flavored disposable vapes removed state court claims brought against them by the city of New York to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, one week after the city moved for a preliminary injunction barring them and several other wholesalers of from continuing to sell vapes in violation of state and federal law.
July 10, 2024
Tobacco Company Not Liable For Smoker’s Laryngeal Cancer Death, Jury Says

MIAMI — A Miami-Dade County, Fla., 11th Judicial Circuit Court jury issued a verdict awarding no damages and finding a tobacco company not liable for claims that it defectively designed Virginia Slims cigarettes and caused a smoker’s death from laryngeal cancer. VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.
July 10, 2024
Health Groups Seek Hearing On ‘Political’ Delay Of Menthol Cigarette Ban

SAN FRANCISCO — Three health advocacy organizations filed supplementary materials in support of their motion for administrative relief seeking a hearing on the speed with which a California federal court hears their lawsuit accusing the Food and Drug Administration, affiliated agencies and their leaders of unlawfully delaying a federal ban of menthol cigarettes.
July 09, 2024
First Nations’ Cigarette Maker Asks To Stay Challenge To Oregon ‘Equity’ Law

EUGENE, Ore. — A Canadian First Nations-owned cigarette manufacturer and Oregon on July 8 filed a joint motion in Oregon federal court to stay the manufacturer’s lawsuit over the state’s new payment requirement based on cigarette sales pending the outcome of an appeal of a parallel state court ruling that the requirement violates the state Constitution.