Each year Consumer Attorneys of California (CAOC) awards a “Consumer Attorney of the Year” award to a CAOC member or members who significantly advanced the rights or safety of California consumers by achieving a noteworthy result in a case. The CAOC, is a professional attorney organization that represents the interest of Californian consumers and seeks accountability from powerful wrongdoers such as big polluters, insurance companies, auto manufacturers, and banks. 

Keller Rohrback is proud to have two attorneys, Dean Kawamoto, and Felicia Craick, included as part of an all-star team of attorneys (including Sarah R. London, Andrew R. Kaufman, Reilly T. Stoler, Caitlin M. Woods, Nick W. Lee, Dena C. Sharp, Scott M. Grzenczyk, Nina R. Gliozzo, and Ellen Relkin) that was selected as one of the finalists for this great honor.  
The winner will be announced November 16 at the Annual Installation and Awards Dinner during CAOC’s 63rd Annual Convention in San Francisco.

The team was selected for their work in In re: Juul Labs, Inc. Marketing, Sales Practices & Products Liability Litigation and JUUL Labs Product Cases; a case taking head-on the epidemic of youth vaping.  
 

VICTORY FOR INDIVIDUALS AND ENTITIES HARMED BY THE E-CIGARETTE EPIDEMIC 

In 2015, two Stanford graduates launched an e-cigarette company with a dream of de-stigmatizing smoking and making nicotine great again. By 2018, their product had gone viral, and ‘JUUL-ing’ became ubiquitous among teens and young people. Altria Group, Inc. (formerly Philip Morris) made a $12.8 billion investment in JUUL Labs, Inc. and expanded JUUL’s reach nationwide. The result was what then-Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb dubbed a youth e-cigarette use “epidemic”: exponential growth in JUUL use and addiction among kids, many of whom did not understand that the products contained nicotine. The attorneys prepared for two trials – a bellwether personal injury case on behalf of a child who became addicted to JUUL at age 12 and a government entity case on behalf of San Francisco Unified School District – before negotiating historic settlements with JUUL Labs, and then tried an unprecedented RICO and public nuisance case on behalf of SFUSD against Altria, reaching another historic global settlement with the tobacco giant in the middle of trial, just after the plaintiffs rested their case. Included are a personal injury settlement to provide meaningful compensation to more than 8,500 people suffering from nicotine addiction and other injuries; a consumer class action settlement to remunerate consumers who purchased JUUL products; a government entity settlement to provide resources to over 1,400 school districts, cities, and counties to abate youth nicotine addiction in their communities; and a settlement to provide similar funding for 32 Native American tribal entities. The San Francisco Unified School District was awarded a $24.65 million payment that is set to revolutionize the district’s health resources, facilitating the hiring of 76 health-focused professionals, including nurses and counselors. Under the global settlements with JUUL and Altria, school districts and local governments will collectively receive hundreds of millions of dollars to be used for vaping education and prevention programs as well as addiction treatment and counseling.
 

The full list of finalists and nominated cases can be viewed here. 

The finalists for this award were selected by a committee consisting of members of CAOC’s Executive Committee; representatives of the attorney groups that won the award in each of the last three years; and six randomly selected members of CAOC’s Board of Directors. 

Congratulations to Dean and Felicia and the rest of the JUUl team for being selected as finalists for this prestigious award, and good luck to them and all of the other finalists come this November!