Trial date set for March 27 in state’s case against Juul and Altria

Late Tuesday, the Hennepin County Judge overseeing the State of Minnesota’s three-year lawsuit against e-cigarette manufacturer Juul and tobacco company Altria rejected defendants’ latest efforts to weaken or dismiss the State’s claims.

This ruling sets in motion a three-week jury trial beginning on March 27.

The state alleges Juul, enabled by Altria, participated in consumer fraud, negligence, and public nuisance.

Minnesota’s lawsuit will be the first case against Juul to go to trial since over a dozen states sued the company beginning in 2019.

Attorney General Keith Ellison first filed the lawsuit against Juul in December 2019.

“When I announced this lawsuit more than three years ago, I said that my job was to protect Minnesotans from deceptive sales and to protect their health and safety, especially our youth,” Ellison said in a statement. “We will prove how Juul and Altria deceived and hooked a generation of Minnesota youth on their products, causing both great harm to the public and great expense to the State to remediate that harm.”  

The trial is expected to wrap up around April 14.