Publication Archive: Opioids Litigation

Hunter Shkolnik, the attorney who won the settlement for Cuyahoga, is also the lead outside counsel for Palm Beach County in its suit against Big Pharma. “We think we made the first good step, and we’ve set a pretty good benchmark, and I can’t imagine us asking for less if they’re going to wait that…Read the article

The nation’s three biggest drug distributors and a major drugmaker agreed to an 11th-hour, $260 million settlement over the terrible toll taken by opioids in two Ohio counties, averting the first federal trial over the crisis.Read the article

Cuyahoga and Summit counties had brought the lawsuit that accused the four companies of fueling a nationwide opioid crisis. According to U.S. government data, opioids have led to some 400,000 overdose deaths between 1997 and 2017. Lawyers say the settlement will provide local governments with the finances needed to establish opioid-recovery programs.Read the article

A $260 million settlement in an opioid lawsuit was reached between two Ohio counties and four drug companies on Monday just hours before opening arguments were to begin in a landmark federal trial over responsibility for the U.S. opioid crisis. The deal contains no admission of wrongdoing by the defendants. And nationwide the pharmaceutical industry…Read the article

Across the U.S., the pharmaceutical industry still faces more than 2,600 other lawsuits over the deadly disaster, and participants in those cases said the latest deal buys them time to try to work out a nationwide settlement of all claims. Monday’s deal was struck in the middle of the night, just hours before a jury…Read the article

The nation’s three biggest drug distributors and a major drugmaker reached a $260 million settlement with two Ohio counties over the deadly havoc wreaked by opioids, just hours before the first federal trial over the crisis was about to begin Monday. The agreement reached calls for the distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson to pay…Read the article

Four attorneys general on Monday unveiled a proposed $48 billion deal with major drug companies — Teva Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson and the nation’s largest drug distributors — to resolve a wave of opioid-crisis lawsuits. Hunter J. Shkolnik of Napoli Shkolnik PLLC, a top plaintiffs attorney in the MDL, added in an interview late Monday…Read the article

A rapid outburst of opposition to a $48 billion “settlement framework” in opioid-crisis litigation unveiled Monday by four state attorneys general may signal a shift to local governments and states fighting not only with drug companies but also with each other. The backlash from plaintiffs lawyers in the opioid multidistrict litigation and at least one…Read the article

The agreement, reached shortly after midnight and announced Monday morning, settles claims the counties made against large distribution companies AmerisourceBergen, McKesson, the Ohio-based Cardinal Health and drugmaker Teva Pharmaceuticals. Under the agreement, the three distributors will pay a combined $215 million, while Teva will pay $20 million in cash over between now and 2021. Teva…Read the article

The agreement reached Monday calls for the distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson to pay a combined $215 million, said Hunter Shkolnik, a lawyer for Cuyahoga County. “People can’t lose sight of the fact that the counties got a very good deal for themselves, but we also set an important national benchmark for the others,”…Read the article