As Lawsuits Mount, e-Cigarette Maker Juul Is Granted MDL
Things keep getting worse for e-cigarette maker Juul Labs, Inc. In the midst of a wave of vaping illnesses sweeping the nation, the leading U.S. vaping company is under fire. Juul is currently the subject of a federal investigation and multiple lawsuits targeting its marketing practices to underage users. It has recently undergone a shakeup in its corporate leadership and faces a flurry of legislation at the state level attempting to restrict or ban its flavored “pods,” which have become wildly popular among America’s youth.
Now the mountain of mass-tort litigation Juul is facing will be consolidated in a multi-district litigation (MDL) in federal court in San Francisco, where the company is headquartered. Attorneys for Juul and for some of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits had requested an MDL in a hearing before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in Los Angeles, which decides if similar federal court cases around the country would best be handled in a single court.
In early October, the panel agreed to create an MDL and centralize all pending federal cases against Juul in the court of U.S. District Judge William Orrick of the Northern District of California, who was already overseeing a class-action lawsuit brought against Juul in 2018 by 44 plaintiffs from 22 states.