ENDP Endo International PLC

By Sara Randazzo 

This article is being republished as part of our daily reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S. print edition of The Wall Street Journal (May 9, 2018).

As lawsuits over the opioid crisis have spread nationwide, the country's most populous state has largely stayed on the sidelines.

Now, 30 counties in California are jumping in, seeking recovery for alleged taxpayer losses from the major makers and distributors of opioid painkillers.

The counties, largely centered in the rural northern and central regions of the state, are each filing lawsuits in federal court. The actions will likely be sent to a federal judge in Ohio, who is overseeing hundreds of opioid lawsuits filed across the country.

"County governments...have been subsidizing the bad acts of the opioid manufacturers and distributors for the last 10 or more years," said John Fiske, an attorney with Baron & Budd PC, which is representing the 30 counties.

The local governments formed a coalition to develop their litigation strategy, finding "strength in numbers," said Robyn Drivon, county counsel in Sacramento. The 30 counties collectively include 10.5 million residents, reaching from Siskiyou and Modoc counties on the Oregon border down to Fresno and the coastal community of Monterey, plus the southernmost counties of San Diego and Imperial.

The city of Los Angeles filed its own opioid action last week. The state's Santa Clara and Orange counties also together brought one of the first opioid actions in state court in 2014, which recently overcame a motion to dismiss filed by the drug-maker defendants.

California as a whole hasn't been as affected by the opioid crisis as the Appalachian region and Northeast, but many communities have still felt the burden of addiction. In 2016, some 2,030 Californians died from opioids, according to the California Department of Public Health and other state agencies. That translates to a rate of 4.86 deaths per 100,000 residents statewide, though the county-by-county rates range from zero to nearly 23 per 100,000.

The new lawsuits name drug makers including Purdue Pharma LP, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Johnson & Johnson, Allergan PLC and Endo International PLC, and drug distributors including Cardinal Health Inc., AmerisourceBergen Corp., McKesson Corp. and Walmart Inc.

Many of the same companies are named in the more than 600 lawsuits that have been brought by cities, counties and states nationwide. The California lawsuits claim the manufacturers aggressively, and unlawfully, marketed their painkillers while playing down their addictive qualities and that the distributors neglected their legal duty to monitor, detect and report suspicious orders.

The counties are seeking to recover costs stemming from medical care and rehabilitation services to treat opioid addiction, care for children whose parents are incapacitated by opioid use and infants born with opioid-related conditions, and law enforcement and public safety.

The manufacturers have repeatedly denied the allegations in the opioid-related suits against them and said they are focused on being part of the solution to the opioid crisis. The distributors also have denied the claims and said they are committed to maintaining strong programs designed to detect and prevent opioid diversion.

Walmart said this week it is introducing new policies and programs aimed at curbing opioid misuse and abuse.

As new lawsuits mount, settlement discussions in the opioid cases consolidated in Ohio are progressing, according to a Tuesday order from U.S. District Judge Dan Polster. The order requires the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency to turn over nationwide data showing "the precise number of opioid pills delivered to each city and county in America, partitioned by manufacturer and distributor and pharmacy." Data from a handful of states that the DEA has turned over so far, the judge said, have helped identify which defendants should be targeted and how any eventual settlement money should be allocated.

Lawmakers in Washington, meanwhile, held a pair of hearings Tuesday on ways to combat the opioid epidemic.

The House Energy and Commerce committee heard testimony Tuesday from drug companies that for years shipped hundreds of opioid pills per person to small towns in West Virginia.

George Barrett, executive board chairman of Cardinal Health, told lawmakers that "With the benefit of hindsight, I wish we had moved faster and asked a different set of questions. I am deeply sorry we did not."

Write to Sara Randazzo at sara.randazzo@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 09, 2018 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.