The mother of an 18-year-old boy who died after using electronic cigarettes for three years filed the first wrongful death lawsuit against Juul Labs Inc. on Tuesday.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, seeks unspecified damages, including punitive damages, for the death of Daniel David Wakefield, a resident of Pasco County, Florida, who died in in August of last year. His mother, Lisa Marie Vail, the plaintiff in the complaint, alleged that her son began using Juul's e-cigarettes, which he believed to be safe, at age 15. Now, the complaint says, she is "sentenced to a life of sadness."

"Juul claims that its product was intended to help existing, adult cigarette smokers. However, Juul intentionally targeted our youth beginning in 2015 with improper marketing and lies, going to so far as to give its product away for free to minors without verifying their age," wrote Vail's law firm, Levin Simes Abrams, in a statement. "In doing so, Juul single-handedly created an epidemic of young users with unprecedented levels of daily nicotine addiction."