California Counties Jump Into Opioid Litigation
May 08 2018 - 3:44PM
Dow Jones News
By Sara Randazzo
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 the lawsuits continue to mount, lawmakers in Washington 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 08, 2018 15:29 ET (19:29 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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