When a number of plaintiffs sue the same defendant on the same issues, with common questions of fact, cases can be combined in what’s called multi-district litigation (MDL). That’s what’s happening in the combining of multiple cases against Juul Labs, Inc. into the multi-district case In re: Juul Labs, Inc., Marketing, Sales Practices, and Products Liability Litigation.
This combines ten different actions, five from California, two from Alabama, two from Florida, and one from New York. These include both class actions and individual personal-injury cases. However, the Transfer Order says, “The Panel has been notified of more than forty potentially-related actions.”
Originally, some of those involved favored assembling the cases into two MDLs, one for class actions and another for individual ones. However, the Transfer Order says, “Given the substantial overlap in the core factual issues, parties, and claims, a single MDL will best achieve” the courts’ purposes.
The cases cover similar issues with reference to Juul and its products. They allege that Juul has marketed its products in a way that’s designed to be attractive to minors. They claim that the marketing of the e-cigarettes and pods either misrepresents or omits to say that they have a greater potency and are more addictive than regular cigarettes, because of the high nicotine content and the way in which it’s delivered. They allege that Juul promotes nicotine addiction. And finally, they claim that Juul’s products “are defective and unreasonably dangerous due to their attractiveness to minors[.]”
The transfer order for this MDL notes, “These actions share multiple factual issues concerning the development, manufacture, labeling, and marketing” of the Juul products “and the alleged risks posed by use of those products.” It therefore makes sense to combine the cases into a single action and examine the issues all at once.
This, the transfer order says, “will eliminate duplicative discovery, the possibility of inconsistent rulings on class certification, Daubert motions, and other pretrial matters, and conserve judicial and party resources.”
The court chosen for the filing of this MDL is the Northern District of California. This is a federal court, not a state court. The location has been chosen because Juul has its headquarters in that area, and five of the cases are pending there.
A Master Docket File will be maintained for the case, with pleadings labeled as applying to all actions or a specific action. Each case will still maintain its individual docket files for the items that pertain only to it or only to a few of the cases.
It is expected that other cases, called “tag-along actions,” may be “later filed in, removed to, or transferred to this Court.”
Article Type: LawsuitTopic: Consumer
Most Recent Case Event
Juul Labs Cases Combined into Single MDL Action Transfer Order
October 2, 2019
When a number of plaintiffs sue the same defendant on the same issues, with common questions of fact, cases can be combined in what’s called multi-district litigation (MDL). That’s what’s happening in the combining of multiple cases against Juul Labs, Inc. into the multi-district case In re: Juul Labs, Inc., Marketing, Sales Practices, and Products Liability Litigation.
juul_labs_combined_litigation.pdfCase Event History
Juul Labs Cases Combined into Single MDL Action Transfer Order
October 2, 2019
When a number of plaintiffs sue the same defendant on the same issues, with common questions of fact, cases can be combined in what’s called multi-district litigation (MDL). That’s what’s happening in the combining of multiple cases against Juul Labs, Inc. into the multi-district case In re: Juul Labs, Inc., Marketing, Sales Practices, and Products Liability Litigation.
juul_labs_combined_litigation.pdf