Court widens options for vaping companies pushing back against FDA rules
Family Law
The Supreme Court sided with e-cigarette companies on Friday in a ruling making it easier to sue over Food and Drug Administration decisions blocking their products from the multibillion-dollar vaping market.
The 7-2 opinion comes as companies push back against a yearslong federal regulatory crackdown on electronic cigarettes. It’s expected to give the companies more control over which judges hear lawsuits filed against the agency.
The justices went the other way on vaping in an April decision, siding with the FDA in a ruling upholding a sweeping block on most sweet-flavored vapes instituted after a spike in youth vaping.
The current case was filed by R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co., which had sold a line of popular berry and menthol-flavored vaping products before the agency started regulating the market under the Tobacco Control Act in 2016.
The agency refused to authorize the company’s Vuse Alto products, an order that “sounded the death knell for a significant portion of the e-cigarette market,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the majority opinion.
The company is based in North Carolina and typically would have been limited to challenging the FDA in a court there or in the agency’s home base of Washington. Instead, it joined forces with Texas businesses that sell the products and sued there. The conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the lawsuit to go forward, finding that anyone whose business is hurt by the FDA decision can sue.
The agency appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that R.J. Reynolds was attempting to find a court favorable to its arguments, a practice often referred to as “judge shopping.”
The justices, though, found that the law does allow other businesses affected by the FDA decisions, like e-cigarette sellers, to sue in their home states.
In a dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, said she would have sided with the agency and limited where the cases can be filed.
The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids called the majority decision disappointing, saying it would allow manufacturers to “judge shop,” though it said the companies will still have to contend with the Supreme Court’s April decision.
Attorney Ryan Watson, who represented R.J. Reynolds, said that the court recognized that agency decisions can have devastating downstream effects on retailers and other businesses, and the decision “ensures that the courthouse doors are not closed” to them.
Related listings
-
Judge to weigh Louisiana AG’s challenge to city jail’s ‘sanctuary’ policy
Family Law 04/22/2025Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill is pushing forward with her efforts to force Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson to drop a longtime policy that generally prohibits deputies from directly engaging in federal immigration enforcement within the c...
-
Trump gets no-penalty sentence in his hush money case, while calling it ‘despicable’
Family Law 01/06/2025President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced Friday to no punishment in his historic hush money case, a judgment that lets him return to the White House unencumbered by the threat of a jail term or a fine.With Trump appearing by video from his Florida ...
-
Court overturns actor Jussie Smollett's 2019 conviction in hate crime hoax case
Family Law 11/16/2024The Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday overturned actor Jussie Smollett's conviction on allegations that he staged a racist and homophobic attack against himself in downtown Chicago in 2019 and lied to police.Smollett's appeal argued that a special p...

Can my trucking injury case be filed in Illinois?
If you have been injured in a truck driving accident, you may be wondering whether your worker’s comp case can be filed in Illinois. For an injured truck driver, this is an important question to ask, as the jurisdiction of the case can end up having a big impact on your benefits.
There are three main scenarios in which the Illinois Worker’s Compensation Commission would have jurisdiction over a trucking injury:
-If the accident took place in Illinois, If the employer is principally located in Illinois, or If the contract for hire is in Illinois
This means that a truck driver whose home terminal is in Illinois can make a claim for workers comp benefits in Illinois even if they were injured while on the road in another State. It also means that truck drivers who get hurt while passing through Illinois can file a claim in Illinois, even if their employer is located in another state.
If you have been injured on the road, and you are unsure where and how to file your workers comp claim, call us at (312)-726-5567 to begin your consultation. We can advise you whether Illinois is the right state to file for you. We have handled well over 30,000 claims for injured workers throughout the state of Illinois.