TIMES.KY

Cayman Islands, Caribbeanand International News
Saturday, Jun 03, 2023

US judge to decide how much pharmacies owe over opioid crisis

US judge to decide how much pharmacies owe over opioid crisis

Approximately 80 million prescription painkillers were dispensed in Trumbull County between 2012 and 2016 — 400 for every county resident — while 61 million pills were dispensed in Lake County during that five-year period — 265 pills for every resident.

How much money should CVS, Walgreens and Walmart pharmacies pay two Ohio counties in damages to help abate the effects of the opioid crisis?

That is the question in front of a federal judge in Cleveland, who will begin hearing testimony on Tuesday after a jury found the three giant pharmacy chains responsible last fall for recklessly distributing massive amounts of pain pills in Lake and Trumbull counties. It was the first time pharmacies in the United States have been held responsible for the opioid crisis.

Plaintiff’s lawyers said before the trial that each county needs about $1bn to repair the damage caused by the flood of pills, which caused hundreds of overdose deaths.

Approximately 80 million prescription painkillers were dispensed in Trumbull County between 2012 and 2016 — 400 for every county resident — while 61 million pills were dispensed in Lake County during that five-year period — 265 pills for every resident.

Back in November, a jury in US District Judge Dan Polster’s courtroom sided with the counties and agreed that the way the pharmacies dispensed pain medication played an outsized role in creating a public nuisance.

Now, the counties are expected to present testimony from doctors to discuss the harm suffered by those communities, the opioid crisis’ effect on child welfare and other county agencies, and an abatement plan created for the counties.

“The jury sounded a bell that should be heard through all pharmacies in America,” Mark Lanier, the lead lawyer for the counties, said after November’s verdict.

Across the US, many lawsuits filed by governments over the toll of the drugs have been resolved in recent years — most with settlements, and some with judgments or verdicts in trials. So far, drug makers, distributors and pharmacies have agreed to settlements totalling well more than $40bn, according to an Associated Press tally.

Trials are under way in courts in West Virginia, Florida and California. A decision has not yet been issued after another trial last year in West Virginia.

According to an April 25 court filing, the abatement plan created for Lake and Trumbull counties by Dr Caleb Alexander of John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, “are reasonable and necessary to abate the public nuisance found by the jury”.

The plan focuses on prevention, treatment, recovery and “measures intended to specifically address the needs of special populations who have been uniquely affected by the opioid epidemic”, the court filing said.

Lawyers for Walgreens and Walmart argued in a court filing that the counties’ $878m abatement plan should be limited to one year and not the minimum of five years the counties argue they need. One of the pharmacy chains’ experts has estimated the actual cost at $346m while another expert said it was less than $35m, the filing said.

Defence lawyers also argued that damage caused by other entities who contributed to the public nuisance of opioid addiction should be excluded from any amounts awarded by Polster and that those costs should be limited to the pharmacies’ “appropriate share of contribution to the nuisance”.

Pharmacy chain Rite-Aid settled with the counties in early October before the start of the trial. Pittsburgh-based Giant Eagle reached a settlement with the counties in late October after the trial started.

There were nearly 500,000 deaths caused by legal and illegal opioids between 2000 and 2019, according to the US Centers for Disease Control.

AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

TIMES.KY
Close
0:00
0:00
Nvidia Joins Tech Giants as First Chipmaker to Reach $1 Trillion Valuation
Drone Attack on Moscow's Wealthiest Neighborhoods Suspected to be Launched by Ukraine
Elon Musk Meets Chinese Finance Minister in Beijing
AI ‘extinction’ should be same priority as nuclear war – experts
Prominent Hacker Forum RaidForums Suffers Substantial Data Breach
Nvidia CEO Huang says firms, individuals without AI expertise will be left behind
WPP Revolutionizes Advertising with NVIDIA's AI Powerhouse
Two US Employees Fired For Chasing Robbers Out Of Store As They Broke ''Company Policy''
If you donated to BLM, you got played
Pfizer, the EU, and disappearing ink - Smoke, Mirrors, and the Billion-Dose Pfizer Vaccine Deal: EU's 'Open Secret
Actor Tom Hanks told Harvard University graduates to be superheroes in their defense of truth and American ideals, and to resist those who twist the truth for their own gain
The Sussexes' Royal Rebound: Could Harry and Meghan Markle Return to the UK?
A provocative study suggests: Left-Wing Extremism and its Unsettling Connection to Psychopathy and Narcissism
France Arrests 10 on Suspicion of Failing to Respond in Time to Migrant Drowning
Neuralink Receives FDA Approval for First-in-Human Clinical Study
Is Saudi Arabia the holiest place in the world? Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions from "The Mount Sinai Stand" Discovered in Saudi Arabia
Ukrainian Intelligence Official Admits to Assassination Attempts on Putin
Bernard Arnault Loses $11.2 Billion in One Day as Investors Fear Slowdown in US Growth Will Reduce Demand for Luxury Products
Russian’s Wagner Group leader: “I am not a chef, I am a butcher. Russia is in danger of a revolution like in 1917.”
TikTok Sues Montana Over Law Banning the App
Ron DeSantis Jumps Into 2024 Presidential Race, Setting Up Showdown With Trump
Last Walmart in North Portland Closing Down
Florida's DeSantis seeks to disqualify judge in Disney case
Talks between US House Republicans and President Biden's Democratic administration on raising the federal government's $31.4tn debt ceiling have paused
Biden Administration Eyeing High-Profile Visits to China: The Biden Administration is heating things up by looking into setting up a series of top-level visits to Beijing by top officials in the coming months
New evidence in special counsel probe may undercut Trump’s claim documents he took were automatically declassified
A French court of appeals confirmed former President Nicolas Sarkozy's three-year jail term for corruption and influence peddling
Debt Ceiling Crises Have Unleashed Political Chaos
Weibao Wang, a former software engineer at Apple, was charged with stealing trade secrets related to autonomous systems, including self-driving cars
Mobile phone giant Vodafone to cut 11,000 jobs globally over three years as new boss says its performance not good enough
Elon Musk compares George Soros to Magneto, the supervillain from the Marvel Comics series.
Warren Buffett Sells TSMC Shares Over Concerns About Taiwan's Stability
New Study Finds That Secondary Bacterial Pneumonia Is a Major Cause of Death in COVID-19 Patients Who Require Ventilator Assistance
The Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines calls the British monarchy "an absurdity" he wants to remove in his lifetime
King Charles III being crowned.
'Godfather Of AI' Geoffrey Hinton Quits Google To Warn Of The Tech's Dangers
A Real woman
Vermont Man Charged with Stalking After Secretly Tracking Woman with Apple AirTag
Elon Musk Statements About Tesla Autopilot Could Be 'Deepfakes,' Lawyers Claim. Judge Evette Pennypacker Does Not Understand How Far and Advanced This Technology Became
Ukraine More Prepared for Counterattack as Reinforcements Arrive
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni Discuss Migration, Defence, and Ukraine
AT&T's Successful Test of Satellite-Based Phone Call Raises Possibility of Widespread Coverage
CNN: "Joe Biden is asking for four more years — when 74% of Americans think the country is heading the wrong way“
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Cuts Short Live TV Interview Due to Health Issue
US Congresswoman threaten Twitter Files journalist with arrest
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh slams New York Times' pro-government stance and treatment of sources
Enough is enough: it's time to end the war in Ukraine. While Russia may be to blame for starting it, Russia is not the one refusing to stop it
Fox News Settles their case with Dominion Voting Systems for a staggering $787.5 MILLION
AG decries scapegoating and rushed lawmaking by government
The land of the free violence
×