A former employee of a vaporizer designer and manufacturer is suing the Torrance-based company, alleging he was fired in 2019 for complaining about safety conditions and refusing to lie to customers about the testing of the firm’s products.
Adam Temkin’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit allegations against Vaporous Technologies Inc. — which, according to its website, is the first-ever private label agency for the e-cigarette industry — include whistleblower retaliation, wrongful termination, fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
A company representative could not be immediately reached for comment on the suit, which seeks unspecified damages.
Temkin, 45, 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 court papers filed on his behalf on Monday.
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 states.
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 attending a trade show where he had meetings planned with prospective clients, the suit states.
Vaporous Technologies failed to pay Temkin his salary in August 2019 and shortly thereafter he was fired, the suit states.