Lexington County School District 1 has settled an ongoing lawsuit with an e-cigarette company.

On Feb. 28, the district’s Board of Trustees unanimously voted to accept the settlement it received from Juul Labs, ending its role in a lawsuit it joined in October 2020.

According to the settlement, District 1 is eligible to receive a gross offer of $829,853, to which bonus payment funds may ultimately be added. 

“On those rare occasions when a school district is a plaintiff in a lawsuit it can be very rewarding if you prevail, which is what you've done,” attorney David Duff said at the regularly scheduled Feb. 28 board meeting. 

“It's rewarding not only in terms of any monetary recovery, which you will be receiving, it's also rewarding in the sense that in this case, the cause was just and it clearly was in the interest of your constituents and your students and the whole vaping epidemic and nicotine addiction and all those problems that have arisen and are still ramping from what I know around the state and elsewhere.”

The district was one of about 1,400 that joined the case against Juul, seeking to stop the manufacturer from targeting its products at teenagers. When it joined the suit, Lexington 1 said it was doing so to curb what it saw as an epidemic among students.

“These settlements represent major steps toward strengthening Juul Labs’ operations and securing the company’s path forward to fulfill its mission to transition adult smokers away from combustible cigarettes while combating underage use,” the company said in a statement earlier this year.

The settlement brings some closure to a fight the district began more than three years ago.

At its Jan. 21, 2020 meeting, the board passed a resolution stating the district had seen a significant rise in the use of e-cigarettes by children and teens due to new tobacco products leading to a new generation of addicted users, adding that e-cigarettes and vaping are unsafe and have been linked to death.

Later that year, on Feb. 18, the district unanimously approved a vaping resolution that opposed the use and sale of e-cigarettes and electronic vaping devices.

According to Duff, roughly 65% of the net recovery coming to the district as a result of the settlement will be paid out by the end of the calendar year.