Publication Archive: Opioid Epidemic

Purdue Pharma is poised to wrap up all liability for its role in the opioid crisis in a matter of weeks after its $8.3 billion settlement with the Justice Department cleared the way to resolve outstanding bankruptcy claims. “This clears the way for a Purdue bankruptcy plan to be finalized and to be put forward…Read the article

Pharmacies have no justification for their request that the Sixth Circuit review a judge’s ruling allowing two Ohio counties’ opioid claims to go forward, other than that they disagree with the ruling, the counties said Tuesday. “The chain pharmacies are rehashing a losing, and almost laughable argument,” Hunter J. Shkolnik of Napoli Shkolnik PLLC, one of…Read the article

A group of Ohio cities and counties asked the federal judge overseeing the opioid multidistrict litigation to sanction Teva and Allergan for the “willful” failure to produce an audit report over suspicious orders of opioids during discovery. “It was quite a surprise to see that Allergan and Teva withheld this highly relevant evidence which clearly…Read the article

U.S. District Judge Dan Poster concluded that pharmacies have an obligation on the corporate-level to design and implement policies and procedures to identify red flag prescriptions of opioids, according to the pharmacies. “This is just another example of the chain pharmacy defendants going on hands and knees begging to be relieved of their obligations to…Read the article

The (opioid) trial is expected to test allegations from New York and Suffolk and Nassau counties against major drug manufacturers and distributors. The so-called Frye hearings in the suit are used to determine the admissibility of scientific evidence. “Would it be fair to say that you determined there were departures from the appropriate standards of…Read the article

The first lawsuit putting the entire opioid supply chain on trial will begin pretrial hearings Friday in New York State Supreme Court in Suffolk County. “We’re going to lay out the whole case for the court, for the public,” said Hunter Shkolnik, who represents some of the plaintiff municipalities. “This will be the first time…Read the article

The Ohio federal judge overseeing opioid multidistrict litigation has refused to toss two Ohio counties’ bellwether cases against pharmacies, allowing their public nuisance claims over the dispensing and distribution of opioids to move forward. “We were confident in the strength of the case against the national chain pharmacies like CVS, Rite Aid, Walmart, Walgreens and…Read the article

Two Ohio counties urged a federal judge to shut down requests by pharmacy chains to toss claims that they created a public nuisance by failing to monitor suspicious opioid orders that helped fuel an epidemic of painkiller addiction, saying the state’s public nuisance law fits their claims.  Read the article

A group of pharmacies is asking an Ohio federal judge to dismiss complaints by two Ohio counties alleging the pharmacies contributed to the opioid epidemic, saying the counties are suing under public nuisance laws that don’t fit their claims. An attorney for the counties, Hunter Shkolnik of Napoli Shkolnik, told Law360, “The chain pharmacy defendants,…Read the article

The City of Grande Prairie has signed on as the representative plaintiff on behalf of municipalities in a $10-billion class-action lawsuit regarding the opioid crisis. The city is being represented by Guardian Law Group, a class-action firm in Calgary, and working with Napoli Shkolnik PLLC, a U.S. firm boasting a notably successful track record against…Read the article