CASAA Call to Action: Five Pawns is back in the news. I previously covered their morally and ethically repugnant behavior in the following posts which you may wish to read: Vapors: Five Pawns Speaks on ECF. Part 2, Vapors: Five Pawns Speaks on ECF. Part 1, The Five Pawns Vaping Tragedy Continues, and Vapers: Are ejuice vendors properly disclosing the contents of their ejuice?. I’m not an attorney but I am very familiar with the legal system from both sides of the table. On Nov. 11, 2015 a class action lawsuit was filed against Five Pawns. Plaintiffs are represented by Rachele R. Rickert, Betsy C. Manifold, Brittany N. Dejong, Janine L. Pollack, Michael Jaffe, and Gloria Kui Melwani of Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP, and Jessica J. Sleater of Anderson & Sleater LLC. Wolf Haldenstein is a giant law firm with enough muscle and talent to extract huge multimillion dollar class action settlements from the likes of Google, Apple, Rebok, Sketchers, and numerous other huge corporations. Their power and resources can not be underestimated. They are a gorilla with the ability to drive Five Pawns into Bankruptcy, given the fact that this case is essentially a pro-bono for the Plaintiffs which of course means that they have unlimited resources and staying power. This law firm picks and chooses exactly which clients they wish to represent and they are very selective. Their hourly billing is around $600 per hour or more. They require a business model to their legal actions which means they normally expect to make a profit. Their attorneys are highly paid and represent the very best legal minds in the industry for Class Action law suits.
Given these thoughts, why would they (Wolf Haldenstein) undertake a Class Action law suit against a small privately held company (Five Pawns) who obviously does not have the resources to spend the millions of dollars necessary to fight this law suit and more importantly, lacks the ability to pay a multimillion dollar settlement? Why would they pursue what is obviously a money loosing legal action? Perhaps part of the answer lies in their Class Action law suit against NJOY. This issue is still pending in the courts but basically revolves around the false advertising allegations against NJOY. Perhaps Wolf Haldenstein also wishes to send a message to the industry and the related vaping organizations. Clean up you act. Stop telling lies to your customers, stop the obviscation, stop talking out of both sides of your mouth, and Stop telling half truths. Of course, some members of the “peanut gallery” would like to spin this and portray the law firms as ANTZ. This is ridiculous and without merit. ANTZ wants to eliminate vaping. Deal with it. No more and no less. As opposed to cleaning up the Vaping Industry with full and honest disclosure and permitting a given defendant to continue to do business.
“The Five Pawns class action lawsuit alleges that Five Pawns deceptively advertised its e-cigarette liquids by not disclosing the levels of DA and AP on its bottles, inserts in its packaging, or the Five Pawns website. According to the complaint, Five Pawns knew about the levels of DA and AP in its products since September of 2014, but continued to market its liquids for e-cigarettes as being made from “natural ingredients” that are “sourced locally,” and using “solely diacetyl-free ingredients. The Five Pawns class action lawsuit cites to other testing done by Cloud9, an e-cigarette and vaporizer distributor in the United Kingdom. In the Cloud9 testing, Five Pawns products contained “the highest concentration [of AP] that has ever been seen in any e-liquid.” While Five Pawns disputes those results, Five Pawns own test results from 2014 showed that four of its products contain AP levels higher than acceptable levels set by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the class action lawsuit states.” Source
Russ broke this story with the following Podcast which also contains some profanity so you have been warned:
Here is the actual Class Action law suit:
Five Pawns Class Action Lawsuit
If you’re interested in following this law suit use: Green, et al., v. Five Pawns Inc., Case No. 8:15-CV-01859, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Southern Division. Almost all of the “evidence” supporting the allegations which is presented in the above legal document is already well documented in my previous Blog posts on this issue. If you dive into the above legal document you will see that both sides of this issue began correspondence and settlement talks back in July of 2015. While I don’t read minds, I am astounded that Five Pawns did not bite the bullet and make a rational business decision to take their medicine, pay a relatively small amount of money and settle the issue. The fact that they did not has already cost them dearly. The price of a settlement has increased, their brand is tainted with this publicity, their dealers may also “jump ship”, employee moral will suffer, and they are in serious trouble. It’s NOT about the merits of the case in this instance. We have a justice system to determine the validity of the allegations in this law suit. It’s a rational business decision. Five Pawns doesn’t have millions of dollars to spend trying to win the battle (refute all the Plaintiffs allegations) but effectively loosing the war. The Plaintiffs have unlimited funds given the pro-bono nature of this action so they can pursue Five Pawns for decades! Please leave your egos and hubris in the back seat and settle this issue. If you don’t, your destined for “slaughter”, given the millions of dollars you will spend. And, lets not forget that the failure of Five Pawns to settle has also “hurt” our industry. We all get painted with a broad brush as liars and our enemies have additional evidence to help insure the obliteration of Vaping from planet Earth and Mars! All because of the actions of Five Pawns!
The implications for the Vaping industry are certainly not good. Any industry that fails to effectively self-regulate will always endure Federal regulatory actions and numerous law suites. The same formula is true for the Vaping industry at the local/state level. Forgot the motivations, merits, eithics, or morality. That’s the way it always happens. Period!
My Banner used on ECF for this post:
