The Altria Group has agreed to pay $235m to settle at least 6 000 lawsuits accusing it of igniting a teen vaping epidemic through its former investment in e-cigarette maker Juul Labs.
The deal will bring to an end most of the litigation brought against the company over Juul by local government bodies and individuals across the US.
Reuters reports that the announcement comes shortly after San Francisco’s public school district finished presenting its case against the company in a jury trial, which will now be cut short.
In March, the company announced that it had given up its 35% stake in Juul in exchange for licences to some of Juul’s intellectual property.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuits claimed Juul was marketed to teenagers through its sweet flavours and flashy social media campaigns, and that Altria helped by letting Juul use its sales force and placing its products next to Altria’s on shelves.
Juul previously settled most of the cases against it, paying more than $1bn to 48 states and territories and $1.7bn to individuals and local government entities.
But that’s not the end of the embattled Altria’s financial woes, with the Massachusetts’ High Court recently upholding a massive $37M judgment for a woman who smoked Marlboro Lights and then developed cancer
Altria is the parent company of Philip Morris International, which produces Malboro.
The woman said she got cancer after switching to Marlboro Light cigarettes because she thought they were less dangerous than the Marlboro Red cigarettes she had previously smoked, reports AP.
The Supreme Judicial Court’s unanimous ruling said that Patricia Walsh Greene might have smoked less or quit sooner had she not been swayed by Philip Morris’ claims that Marlboro Lights were safer.
“Philip Morris represented that such products, including Marlboro Lights, delivered lower tar and nicotine and were a healthier alternative to regular cigarettes,” the court wrote in its decision.
But Philip Morris never disclosed to its consumers that internal research it conducted in the late 1970s showed that the smoke of Marlboro Lights was more likely to cause the DNA damage that can lead to cancer, the court said.
Greene smoked her first Marlboro in 1971 at age 13, and was smoking a pack per day by high school. She tried quitting on several occasions, before she managed to stop smoking for a nine-month period in 1979 and 1980, the court said.
When she resumed smoking after the nine-month pause, she switched from Marlboro Red cigarettes to Marlboro Lights after seeing advertising promising that they delivered less tar and less nicotine.
She smoked a pack of Marlboro Lights daily until she finally quit for good in 1995.
Greene was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2013, which had spread to her brain by 2018, requiring multiple surgeries and radiation, the court said.
Greene first sued Philip Morris in Middlesex Superior Court in 2015. The company was found liable for civil conspiracy and Greene was awarded the judgment in 2021.
Philip Morris appealed, arguing that there was insufficient evidence to support the judgments against it, and saying that interest rates that resulted in the final award amount were excessive.
Altria had not commented at the time the article was published.
Reuters article – Altria agrees to $235 mln settlement to resolve Juul-related cases (Open access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Juul, Altria are reneging on promise to combat teen vaping – FDA
FDA delays Juul e-cigarettes’ decision but culls almost a million products
Investor in e-cigarette maker Juul announces $4.5bn loss in value of stake
Judge approves multi-million dollar class action settlement against vaping giant