Business & Tech
Man Who Blew The Whistle At South Bay E-Cigarette Company Settles Suit
In his lawsuit against a South Bay company, Adam Temkin alleged he was fired for trying to come clean about lead in e-cigarette cartridges.
LOS ANGELES , CA — A tentative settlement has been reached in a lawsuit against a vaporizer designer and manufacturer by a former employee who alleged he was wrongfully fired in 2019 from the Torrance-based company.
Adam Temkin brought the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit in October 2020 against Vaporous Technologies Inc., which, according to its website, is the first-ever private label agency for the e-cigarette industry.
Temkin's attorneys filed a notice of a "conditional" settlement on Wednesday with Judge Bruce G. Iwasaki, not stating the terms but estimating that a request for dismissal will filed by April 7.
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On Nov. 29, the judge granted a defense motion to dismiss Temkin's allegations of whistleblower retaliation, wrongful termination, breach of contract and implied-in-fact contract, negligent hiring, supervision and retention, intentional infliction of emotional distress and fraud. The defense motion did not challenge Temkin's claims for unfair business practices and violations of the state Labor Code.
On Thursday, Iwasaki canceled the scheduled May 15 start of trial.
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Temkin, 47, was hired in January 2019 as Vaporous Technologies' sales and business development manager. He met his sales goals and obtained as a client one of the biggest names in the vape pen industry, Acreage Holdings, according to his court papers.
Temkin's work environment changed when the company sent a batch of its cartridges to a cannabis testing lab, Cannasafe, for heavy metal testing, the suit states. Temkin received the testing results from Cannasafe in February 2019 and although some cartridges passed, many others had lead at levels 10 times over the legal limit, according to his lawsuit.
Acreage Holdings reported to Temkin that sample cartridges he sent them failed lead testing and the plaintiff reported the issue right away to a supervisor, who told Temkin to tell the client that Vaporous Technologies cartridges had never failed a test before, the suit stated.
Temkin alleges he reminded the supervisor that the company cartridges had failed Cannasafe's testing. Vaporous Technologies developed a new cartridge model, but still sold the old version with alleged lead contamination to cannabidiol oil companies, according to the plaintiff's lawsuit.
In May 2019, another supervisor began communicating directly with Acreage Holdings and left Temkin off emails to the client, the suit states. Temkin began to feel as he was being set up to fail and feared he would be fired, causing him to suffer anxiety and depression, according to his court papers.
Temkin was excluded from meetings with potential new clients and was not allowed to attend a trade show where he had meetings planned with prospective clients, the suit stated.
Vaporous Technologies failed to pay Temkin his salary in August 2019 and shortly thereafter he was fired, the suit stated.
City News Service
