As reported on Legal Newsline: CLEVELAND, Aug. 14 – Soon after the first of nearly 2,000 opioid lawsuits by cities and counties flooded into his Ohio courtroom, U.S. District Judge Dan Polster laid out an ambitious plan to wrap them up within a year. “People aren’t interested in depositions, and Read more
The National Association of Attorneys General and Ohio AG Dave Yost have finally stated what should have been obvious from the beginning: The strategy of recruiting thousands of cities and counties as plaintiffs to sue the opioid industry is a procedural and political fiasco. In unambiguous July 23 letters to Read more
As published by Legal Newsline: NORMAN, Okla. (Legal Newsline) – The opioid trial now underway in a county courthouse in Oklahoma offers the first look at a legal strategy that could result in tens of billions of dollars in liability against the manufacturers and distributors of addictive narcotic painkillers in Read more
OKLAHOMA CITY (Legal Newsline) – A week after Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter announced a $270 million settlement with Purdue Pharma, lawmakers are questioning why they weren’t consulted on the deal or how to distribute the money. Meanwhile, Oklahoma City and four other cities also want to make sure the Read more
In a startling August exchange with lawyers on both sides of the opioid MDL in Ohio, U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster laid bare the reality of multidistrict litigation, including how in most cases “lawyers drive the train,” not their clients. But the opioid MDL is different, Polster said. Private Read more
Lawsuits against distributors, pharmacies will rely on `aggregate proof’ too many pills were sold, without any examples of improper prescriptions to show how it happened. My latest story for Legal Newsline on Forbes: Plaintiffs in bellwether trials against the opioid industry scheduled to begin next year will try to prove Read more
As reported by Legal Newsline on Forbes.com: A settlement binding all potential plaintiffs may be the only practical way of ending nearly 2,000 lawsuits against manufacturers, distributors and retailers of addictive opioid painkillers, said plaintiff lawyers attending a conference on opioid litigation this week. Some 1,200 lawsuits are gathered in Read more
My latest story on Legal Newsline: HOUSTON (Legal Newsline) – Harris County, Texas, considers itself a highly sophisticated government entity, with a population larger than 16 states and a territory larger than Rhode Island. Yet when it hired outside lawyers to represent it in lawsuits against the opioid industry, Harris Read more
My latest story for Legal Newsline on Forbes.com: Several Pennsylvania counties are fighting to keep control of their opioid lawsuits as the national law firm Simmons Hanly Conroy, with the active support of the companies it is suing, seeks to create what a rival attorney calls a litigation “cesspool.” The Read more
The latest wave of state lawsuits over the opioid crisis illustrates sharp differences emerging in how governments litigate these cases, both in whom they choose to sue and whether private lawyers stand to get a piece of the action. Five of the six states announcing lawsuits earlier this month focused on Read more