This is the first jury verdict in an opioid case. The decision embraced a key legal argument that judges in other opioid cases had recently rejected.
A federal jury in Cleveland on Tuesday found that three of the nation’s largest pharmacy chains — CVS Health, Walmart and Walgreens — had substantially contributed to the crisis of opioid overdoses and deaths in two Ohio counties, the first time the retail segment of the drug industry has been held accountable in the decades-long epidemic. After hearings in the spring, the trial judge will determine how much each company should pay the counties. The verdict — the first from a jury in an opioid case — was encouraging to plaintiffs in thousands of lawsuits nationwide because they are all relying on the same legal strategy: that pharmaceutical companies contributed to a “public nuisance,” a claim that plaintiffs contend covers the public health crisis created by opioids. The public nuisance argument was rejected twice this month, by judges in California and Oklahoma in state cases against opioid manufacturers. The judges found that according to the specifics of their own states’ public nuisance laws, the companies’ activities were too removed from the overdoses and deaths and that the laws had been applied too expansively. In this case, brought by Lake and Trumbull Counties in northeastern Ohio, lawyers for the plaintiffs used the legal claim successfully. They argued that for years, the pharmacies had turned a blind eye to countless red flags about suspicious opioid orders, both at local counters where patients obtained the drugs and at corporate headquarters, where oversight requirements were, according to Mark Lanier, the counties’ lead trial lawyer, “too little, too late.” After a six-week trial, the 12-member jury deliberated for five and a half days. “It’s the first opioid trial against these major household names,” said Adam Zimmerman, who teaches mass litigation at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “They have been the least willing group of defendants to settle, so this verdict is at least a small sign to them that these cases won’t necessarily play out well in front of juries.” It could prod some pharmacy defendants to consider settling rather than going to trial, he said. But Mr. Zimmerman also noted that the opioid lawsuits, which span the country and are scheduled to go to trial in a number of state and federal courts, still have a long way to go. “It’s more like there are many different ballgames going on at once, each with slightly different rules, and we’re in the early innings of almost all of them,” he said, adding that because each state has its own public nuisance law, the three recent outcomes may have little legal effect on upcoming cases. But even as thousands of opioid cases, the first of which were filed in 2014, lumber along, the urgency of getting help to opioid-shattered communities has not slowed. New federal data released last week show overdose deaths from opioids have reached record levels during the pandemic, driven by soaring fatalities from illegal opioids such as heroin and street fentanyl. The deep-pocketed retailers were the last cluster of pharmaceutical corporations to be pursued in the courts.
