8 - Opioids as Public Nuisance Health and Welfare Harm

Summary

Chapter 8 contains an in-depth case study of the opioid mass tort litigation in federal and state courts. It describes the inception and development of the opioid drug crisis and how the opioid crisis affected state and local municipalities, in requiring additional expenditures of money to provide medical, policing, and various social services to communities affected by the crisis. The chapter describes the initiation of opiod litigation, the hundreds of lawsuit, consolidation and transfer of all the opioid litigation into a federal MDL under Judge Dan Polsters supervision in the Northern District of Ohio. The chapter chronicles the management and litigation in the federal MDL proceedings and Judge Polsters approval of a public nuisance claim which actually went to trial. The chapter narrates the resulting, cascading opioid settlements with opioid manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies concurrent with and after the MDL bellwether public nuisance trial. The chapter further chronicles the fate of opioid public nuisance in state courts, with a notable rejection of a public nuisance claim by the Oklahoma Supreme Court. The chapter ends by documenting the many state court opioid settlements during 2021-2022.