Blaine school district to receive Juul Labs settlement

E-cigarette company Juul Labs will pay $1.2 billion to Blaine and 1,600 other school districts involved in a class-action lawsuit settlement for the company’s role in the youth vaping epidemic. 

Blaine school board accepted a resolution in its March 27 regular meeting that instructs Blaine school district superintendent Christopher Granger to file documents necessary to receive claims from the vape company. 

The district joined a lawsuit led by Spokane-based law firm Stevens Clay, P.S. last March that sought to hold Juul and its biggest investor Altria Group, Inc. accountable for present and future costs school districts will incur for the prevention, intervention and education of nicotine use and addiction.

The $1.2 billion will be spread across 1,600 school districts and a few local municipalities through five different payments over the next four years, according to Garrett Williams, a Stevens Clay attorney handling the suit. 

Granger said during the March 27 meeting that the amount the district will receive would be determined once all parties involved agree on the settlement. 

“It’s a strong message that we know how much vaping is impacting the youth of, not just our community, but across the country, and how important it is that we respond to that when we can,” Granger said.

Juul is reportedly paying out a total of $1.7 billion after it settled a consolidation of more than 5,000 lawsuits in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in December 2022. According to The Wall Street Journal, the 5,000 lawsuits have 10,000 plaintiffs, which include school districts, local governments and individuals, that claimed Juul’s e-cigarettes, or vapes, were more addictive than advertised.

In September 2022, Juul agreed to pay $438.5 million to settle a multi-state investigation into the company aiming the marketing of its products to youth and misrepresenting those products, nicotine content, although the company denied such claims, according to The New York Times. The $1 billion settlement involves more cases that Juul will pay out but it does not put an end to claims against Altria, which owned a 35 percent stake in Juul.

In June 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered Juul to stop marketing and distributing its products in the U.S. to protect public health. However, the FDA later placed a temporary hold on its decision following a legal challenge from Juul. The FDA is conducting an additional review of the company’s products.