Murphy – The Cherokee County Board of Education voted Thursday to retain Greensboro-based Ward Black Law in a class-action lawsuit against electronic cigarette manufacturer JUUL. More than 400 school boards around the country are said to be participating in the lawsuit.
Andrews Middle School Principal Lance Bristol spoke to the board in December, explaining that vaping had become a serious issue in local schools. He began his presentation by dumping out a bag nearly filled with confiscated electronic cigarettes, which accounted for just a single day’s worth of confiscated devices.
Attorney Janet Ward Black, principal owner of Ward Black Law, told the board via video conference call Thursday that nicotine affects the adolescent brain in the areas of attention, mood, learning and impulse control. She also compared and contrasted the lawsuit with a recent settlement by major opioid makers and manufacturers.
“In the context of the opioid litigation, the damages have really been sustained by the counties,” she said. “They are the ones that are having to take the financial burden. But in the JUUL litigation, it is in fact school systems, administrators and teachers that are having to bear the burden of monitoring, of discipline, of education, of helping students stop using JUUL.”
There is no financial cost for the school system to join the suit, only a minimal amount of time required for an administrator to provide needed data. If a settlement is reached, Ward Black Law will recoup the cost of its fees and receive a 25 percent contingency fee.
Shatley estimated that any payout the district could receive might be in the five-figure range and would likely have to be spent on educational efforts regarding e-cigarettes and possibly tobacco use.
“Over the past several years, there have been multiple class-action lawsuits against the e-cigarette maker JUUL by schools and municipalities” Shatley said in December. “You may have even heard, I think it was sometime this summer, the attorney general of North Carolina settled a lawsuit with JUUL for about $40 million.”
Black said the original concept of e-cigarettes was to help smokers get off of regular cigarettes. Instead, she said, JUUL debuted in 2015 and targeted middle school students and high school students by advertising on media outlets like Nickelodeon and Seventeen Magazine. The company also used fruit flavors and dessert flavors to lure young customers, something Black said generally would not appeal to seasoned smokers trying to get off of traditional cigarettes.
Tatham, who expressed hesitancy about the lawsuit during the December meeting, said he was swayed by Black’s presentation.
“I did have some concerns about suing a company that has a legal product,” Tatham said. “Ma’am, you definitely made the case for how our children are being targeted, and that has sold me.”