The last two years have been a whirlwind for those of us following the litigation response to the opioid crisis. Thousands of lawsuits have been filed throughout the country. Most notably, the National Prescription Opiate Litigation (a multi-district litigation).
So what is happening on next week? Well, one of the first major opioid trials took place in Oklahoma earlier this summer. When I say “opioid trial,” I mean the legal trial, not “clinical trial.” Forgive me, I had to make the joke. The trial took place and the judge is expected to deliver his ruling on Monday. Berkeley Lovelace, Jr., of CNBC, provides an in-depth analysis of the trial here.
The case was brought by the State of Oklahoma against Johnson & Johnson, et al. The Oklahoma attorney general is seeking damages in excess of $17 billion dollars. The state sued Johnson & Johnson claiming their sales and marketing practices fueled the opioid epidemic and created a public nuisance, resulting in approximately 6,000 overdose deaths. Any damages awarded, assuming there is not a settlement before the ruling, would be used for addiction treatment and preventative measures for the next few decades.
We, at Experts.com, have been following pharmaceutical litigation for a long time. In the last two years, we’ve been laser-focused on opioid litigation. We started to pay strict attention to the matter when we realized it was similar in magnitude as the civil lawsuits involving tobacco, in the 1990s. It meant we were going to see significant litigation for years to come.
With a database of expert witnesses, we set out to write multiple articles on the matter, in the form of question-and-answer-style blog posts. In addition, I’ve written a couple of guest blogs on the topic for other legal companies. This blog post is to recap these resources we’ve published over the last two years.
Two Years of Opioid Crisis Publications:
- Opioid Crisis – An increase in addiction medicine and pain management expert witnesses – November 6, 2017
- Kentucky AG files lawsuit against opioid distributor McKesson – January 22, 2018
- Pain and Addiction Expert Witness Comments on 72,000 Opioid Deaths in 2017 – August 22, 2018
- Judicial Analytics in California Opioid Litigation – January 23, 2019
- Legal and Expert Witness Staffing for Opioid Litigation – June 18, 2019
We Expect More Stories in the Future:
Unfortunately for our country, we expect to be writing about these lawsuits for years to come. What happens next week, may pave the way for more lawsuits and major settlements? We don’t know how it might end, but we’re pretty sure the pharmaceutical companies will end up paying a lot of money. If not in Oklahoma, in other lawsuits still to come.
UPDATE: 08/26/2019
Today, Cleveland County District Court Judge Thad Balkman ruled against Purdue Pharma LLP, Johnson & Johnson and others. He ruled the defendant’s in the first civil opioid trial are responsible for causing a public nuisance, and held them liable for abatement of the nuisance, in the amount of $572+ million.
You can read the verdict here.