Procedural victory allows case to continue

Attorney General Josh Stein recently announced that Durham County Superior Court Senior Resident Judge Orlando Hudson denied Juul’s motion for judgment on the pleadings. That means Attorney General Stein’s lawsuit against Juul for designing, marketing, and selling e-cigarettes to attract young people and for misrepresenting the potency and danger of nicotine in its products in violation of North Carolina’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act will continue. The Attorney General’s Office is preparing for a trial in this case in May 2021.

“Juul targeted young people and misled them about their products,” said Attorney General Josh Stein. “My goal in bringing this case is to protect them. I am pleased that the Court has allowed this important case to move forward. We cannot allow another generation of North Carolinians to become addicted to nicotine because of these reckless and illegal business practices.”

Though distributing e-cigarettes to minors is illegal in North Carolina, use of e-cigarettes increased among high schoolers by 78 percent and among middle schoolers by 48 percent from 2018 to 2019, according to the NCDHHS 2017 NC Youth Tobacco Survey. According to the FDA, in 2019, 27.1 percent of high school students and 7.2 percent of middle school students used tobacco products across the nation.

Juul filed two motions seeking to end the litigation, limit the damages it could be assessed, or postpone the trial. The judge rejected all of Juul’s arguments and denied its motions.

North Carolina was the first state to take legal action against Juul. More on Attorney General Stein’s work to protect people from e-cigarette companies’ illegal marketing practices is available here: 

• Attorney General Stein Take E-Cig Company Juul to Court
• Attorney General Stein Files Lawsuits Against Eight E-Cig Companies
• E-Cigarettes 

A copy of the order is available here.