Chris Lange, FISM News
The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned a $465 million judgment against drug manufacturer Johnson & Johnson for its alleged role in the state’s opioid crisis.
The court ruled 5-1 that District Judge Thad Balkman’s 2019 ruling went too far in holding Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, liable for the state’s opioid crisis due to his misapplication of a public nuisance law. The original decision from Balkman affirmed that J&J had promoted its prescription painkillers through deceptive marketing practices which contributed to opioid overdoses and deaths.
“However grave the problem of opioid addiction is in Oklahoma, public nuisance law does not provide a remedy for this harm,” Justice James Winchester wrote in his opinion. The court agreed with Johnson & Johnson’s argument on appeal that the law is only applicable in localized situations involving crime and property-related disputes, not policy issues.
Johnson & Johnson applauded the court’s decision in a statement to CNN, saying “Today the Oklahoma State Supreme Court appropriately and categorically rejected the misguided and unprecedented expansion of the public nuisance law as a means to regulate the manufacture, marketing, and sale of products, including the Company’s prescription opioid medications.” The New Jersey-based company also expressed “deep sympathy” for those impacted by the opioid crisis.
The ruling could mark a dramatic setback for multiple U.S. states and local governments seeking legal remedy from pharmaceutical drug companies for rising opioid overdose deaths, which have soared to nearly 500,000 in the U.S. over the past two decades. The Oklahoma trial marked the first in over 3,300 lawsuits filed against drug manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies over the opioid crisis.
Earlier this year, three of America’s largest drug distributors – AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health Inc., and McKesson Corp. – agreed to pay up to $26 billion to settle such lawsuits, according to Reuters.
A lawyer who helped draft the settlement proposal said the Oklahoma ruling could result in other drug companies joining in the settlement. “Perhaps the realization that, despite the gravity of the epidemic, trials are inherently risky and appellate courts are largely unpredictable will ultimately help increase participation,” said plaintiff’s attorney Paul Geller of the law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd.
University of Georgia law professor Elizabeth Chamblee Burch echoed the sentiment, stating that the ruling could prompt states and local governments who have not supported the proposed nationwide settlement to reconsider. “To the extent folks are on the fence about going into that settlement, this definitely changes the risk profile,” she said.