(CN) — A federal judge approved the final part of a class action settlement with the e-cigarette company Juul Labs and its parent company Altria, bringing the settlement total to just over $300 million.
Filed in 2018, the plaintiffs charged Juul with misleading the public about the addictiveness and the risk of their e-cigarettes and nicotine cartridges — claiming, for example, that its pre-filled pods contained the same amount nicotine as a pack of cigarettes, when the pods actually contained significantly higher levels.
The plaintiffs also said Juul had targeted teenagers with candy-flavored Juul pods and "multimillion-dollar ad campaigns and social media blitzes using alluring imagery."
The case survived a number of hurdles: The judge denied multiple motions to dismiss the suit and agreed to certify four different classes of plaintiffs (a nationwide class, a nationwide youth class, a California class and a California youth class).
Juul and Altria, which owns 35% of e-cigarette maker, appealed the class certification; the appeal was still pending when both sides reached settlements.
In January, the judge gave preliminary approval to a $255 million settlement between Juul Labs and the plaintiffs. Friday's ruling grants approval to Altria's payment of $45,531,250. The sides have yet to reach an agreement on attorneys fees.
"Court finds that this monetary recovery is fair, reasonable, and adequate given the risks of proceeding to trial and the maximum recovery potentially available to Settlement Class Members if the Class Representatives had prevailed at trial," wrote U.S. District Judge William Orrick in his order.
Last year, Juul agreed to pay six states $462 million to settle claims that it had marketed its vaping products to teenagers. The year before that, it agreed to pay $438.5 million to 33 different states and Puerto Rico.
Founded in 2015, Juul in just three short years became the dominant e-cigarette in the United States, with a market share of 72% by the fall of 2018. But by then, the backlash against vaping, and against flavored nicotine cartridges in particular, had already begun. During the next four years Juul agreed to pull many flavors from shelves and to limit its youth marketing campaigns. By the fall of 2022 its market share was down to 28%.
Also in 2022, the Food and Drug Administration denied authorization for Juul to continue selling its products — effectively a ban, although the order was put on hold by the D.C. Court of Appeals.
According to Orrick's order, 197 people have submitted requests to be excluded from the settlement class. As of last month, more than 14 million claims had been submitted, although many of those are believed to be duplicates as well as fraudulent.
"A substantial number of claims have one or more indicia of fraud," the judge wrote, "so the total number of valid claims will likely be significantly further reduced, with current estimates putting the number of valid claims around 2 million."
The settlement money will be divided not equally, but according to how much money the claimants spent on Juul products in the United States before December 6, 2022. Undocumented claims will be capped at $300; those seeking more than $300 will have to show receipts.
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