Juul Labs, Inc. initiated a lawsuit on Wednesday asking the New York Southern District to require Logic Technology Development LLC to respond to a subpoena issued as part of a multi-district litigation lawsuit against Juul purporting that the company’s marketing was misleading and consumers were wrongfully harmed by Juul’s products.
According to the memorandum filed along with the documents initiating this week’s matter, Logic is a third-party involved in the allegations against Juul’s electronic cigarettes, or electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS), because it also manufactured and sold ENDS products.
“(Juul) understands the burdens that such productions can entail, especially on third parties, and has been more than willing to work with Logic to minimize those burdens. Logic, however, has thus far refused to produce any documents in response to JLI’s subpoena and has failed to articulate any meaningful basis for its blanket assertions of undue burden,” the memorandum stated.
Juul reportedly issued subpoenas to other manufacturers in the industry, but Logic has not complied. The company claimed that the documents held by Logic are “highly relevant to the MDL plaintiffs’ sweeping claims.” Reportedly Logic sold products with many of the same flavors and using some of the same strategies that the plaintiffs argued against in the other lawsuit.
The company listed many times in the allegations against it where the plaintiffs said that “the e-cigarette industry” as a whole were liable. It reported that Logic “is among the leading manufacturers in the ENDS industry whose alleged collective actions plaintiffs repeatedly invoke in their complaints.”
According to Juul, Logic has refused to produce documents or give an explanation of how producing them would be a burden. It claimed that Logics claims that the subpoena is an “undue burden” should not be enough to eliminate its need to respond, and asked for enforcement from the court.
Juul is represented by Kirkland and Ellis.
