Main Street Nashville
NASHVILLE WEATHER
physicians-mutual-dental-insurance-banners

Jury: CVS, Walgreens and Walmart perpetuated opioid crisis




In this undated combination of photos shown are CVS, Walmart and Walgreens locations.Associated Press

In this undated combination of photos shown are CVS, Walmart and Walgreens locations.Associated Press

Walgreens, CVS, and Walmart perpetuated the opioid crisis in two Ohio counties, a federal jury in Cleveland found Tuesday.

The decision against the trio of major corporations marks the first time the retail arm of the pharmaceutical industry has been held liable in the long-standing epidemic of opioid overdoses and fatalities.

“For decades, pharmacy chains have watched as the pills flowing out of their doors cause harm and failed to take action as required by law,” the lawyers for the two counties, along with attorneys for local governments across the country, said in a statement after the verdict.

“The judgment today against Walmart, Walgreens, and CVS represents the overdue reckoning for their complicity in creating a public nuisance,” the statement read.

The amount of damages the pharmacies will be required to pay will be decided later by a federal judge.

The verdict follows a decision earlier this month by Oklahoma’s Supreme Court, which overturned a 2019 judgment for $465 million in a suit brought by the state against pharmaceutical manufacturer Johnson & Johnson, finding that a district court wrongly interpreted state law on public nuisances.

Representatives for CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart released statements disagreeing with the verdict, signaling they will appeal.

“As plaintiffs’ own experts testified, many factors have contributed to the opioid abuse issue, and solving this problem will require involvement from all stakeholders in our health care system and all members of our community,” CVS spokesman Mike DeAngelis said in a statement.

Fraser Engerman, a spokesman for Walgreens, said he believed the court was in error to allow the case to be heard before a jury on a “flawed legal theory” he claimed was inconsistent with state law.

“As we have said throughout this process, we never manufactured or marketed opioids nor did we distribute them to the ‘pill mills’ and internet pharmacies that fueled this crisis,” Engerman said in a statement. “The plaintiffs’ attempt to resolve the opioid crisis with an unprecedented expansion of public nuisance law is misguided and unsustainable.”

Randy Hargrove, a corporate communications representative for Walmart, further claimed the judge allowed the trial to continue after a member of the jury started conducting “her own research and sharing it with other jurors.”

Michael Krauss, a professor emeritus at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, told the Washington Examiner the verdict is not surprising given the way U.S. District Judge Dan Polster managed the case, arguing it “should have been dismissed on some reattachment.”

“If a pharmacy had dumped thousands of opioid pills onto the public road, there might indeed be a public nuisance claim,” Krauss said. “Legally dispensing apparently legally written prescriptions is not a public nuisance any more than legally dispensing gasoline would be. The Oklahoma Supreme Court has recently seen this, and I hope the circuit court will rule the same way.”

The trial in Cleveland was part of a broader consolidation of nearly 3,000 federal opioid lawsuits that have been lumped under the judge’s supervision. Other cases are moving ahead in state courts, including in New York.

The government claims there have been nearly 500,000 opioid-related overdose fatalities in the past two decades, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Leave a Reply