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Opioid Litigation Daily Media Report 10/11/17
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Brick Will Try to Recoup Police, EMS Expenses Through Opioid Lawsuit
Oct 11, 2017 | Brick Shore Beat (NJ)
By Daniel Nee
Brick’s lawsuit against the pharmaceutical companies that manufactuer opioid painkillers will include a dollar figure calculating the full cost of Brick’s drug war, down to the cost of narcotics investigations, Narcan deployments and ambulance rides. -
Bay County To Become Part Of Potential Lawsuit Against Big Drug Companies
Oct 10, 2017 | WSGW (WI)
By John Hall
The Bay County Board of Commissioners gave the go-ahead for the County to become part of a potential class action lawsuit against the seven biggest pharmaceutical companies in America to try to recoup costs tied to fighting the opioid epidemic. -
Columbia County panel in favor of suing pharmaceutical industry over opioids
Oct 10, 2017 | Madison.com (WI)
By Lyn Jerde
If the Wisconsin Counties Association ever sues the pharmaceutical industry to recover government bodies’ costs for addressing opioid addiction, Columbia County could join in the lawsuit, at no cost to the county. -
City of Gadsden to take part in opioid lawsuit
Oct 10, 2017 | Gasden Times (AL)
By Michael Rodgers
As the country continues to fight a growing opioid epidemic, the Gadsden City Council voted Tuesday to pursue a civil law remedy instead of solely focusing on criminal issues. -
Christie says it's "not good" that Trump hasn't declared opioid emergency
Oct 11, 2017 | Associated Press
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Tuesday "it's not good" that President Donald Trump has yet to declare the opioid crisis a national emergency. -
News Channel 25 Nightbeat
Oct 10, 2017 | KXXV (ABC)
By Waco, TX
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/30019554?token=54de8c63-dff9-4aab-b895-c5415431ff50 -
Newschannel 6 This Morning
Oct 11, 2017 | KAUZ (CBS)
By Wichita Falls, TX
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/30019562?token=54de8c63-dff9-4aab-b895-c5415431ff50 -
Eyewitness News at 5
Oct 10, 2017 | WABC (ABC)
By New York, NY
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/30019585?token=54de8c63-dff9-4aab-b895-c5415431ff50 -
CBS4 News at Five
Oct 10, 2017 | WTTV (CBS)
By Indianapolis, IN
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/30019589?token=54de8c63-dff9-4aab-b895-c5415431ff50
Traditional Media Coverage
Broadcast Media Coverage
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Brick Will Try to Recoup Police, EMS Expenses Through Opioid Lawsuit
Oct 11, 2017 | Brick Shore Beat (NJ)
By Daniel Nee
Brick’s lawsuit against the pharmaceutical companies that manufactuer opioid painkillers will include a dollar figure calculating the full cost of Brick’s drug war, down to the cost of narcotics investigations, Narcan deployments and ambulance rides.
The township council formally voted Tuesday night to hire a South Carolina law firm that will file the suit, in Ocean County Superior Court using unique Brick data, against the makers of painkillers such as OxyContin. The lawsuit will accuse the companies of misrepresenting the risk of addiction, thus leading to the heroin addiction crisis that is ongoing in the township and surrounding area.
“Everything related to the heroin problem in Brick Township, those are the damages,” said Mayor John Ducey.
The exact amount of damages has yet to be calculated, but a “hard number” will be included in the lawsuit, said Township Attorney Kevin Starkey.
The litigation firm, Motley Rice, will represent Brick on a contingency basis, meaning Brick will not pay the firm unless damages are awarded. The firm is entitled to 25 percent of any verdict, and all of its costs up to 50 percent of the award.
Ducey said the litigation would hold the drug companies responsible for at least some of the cost of battling heroin addiction, “rather than having it come out of our wallets.”
Melinda Murray, a township resident, said the lawsuit should be expanded to seek compensation for a a loss of quality of life, saying she worries about her son traveling to a nearby convenience store on his own.
“It really has affected everybody,” Murray said.
“Things like diminishing quality of life, courts are normally reluctant to put a value on that,” said Starkey, while agreeing to bring it up to Motley Rice, which he said is a “very aggressive and very creative law firm.”
Motley Rice is also representing Toms River in a similar case against the pharmaceutical companies. The firm was previously involved in suits seeking damages from cigarrette companies and in litigation against Saudi Arabia on behalf of 9/11 victims.
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Bay County To Become Part Of Potential Lawsuit Against Big Drug Companies
Oct 10, 2017 | WSGW (WI)
By John Hall
The Bay County Board of Commissioners gave the go-ahead for the County to become part of a potential class action lawsuit against the seven biggest pharmaceutical companies in America to try to recoup costs tied to fighting the opioid epidemic.
County Executive Jim Barcia says over manufacturing and over prescribing of pain medication has led to innumerable addiction cases and deaths.
Barcia added this particular legal initiative is being led by the County Executives Association of America of which he’s a member and also involved in their Opioid Task Force.
He noted getting involved in the case won’t cost Bay County anything, but could lead to compensation for things like medical or law enforcement expenses.
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Columbia County panel in favor of suing pharmaceutical industry over opioids
Oct 10, 2017 | Madison.com (WI)
By Lyn Jerde
If the Wisconsin Counties Association ever sues the pharmaceutical industry to recover government bodies’ costs for addressing opioid addiction, Columbia County could join in the lawsuit, at no cost to the county.
The County Board’s Executive Committee on Monday voted unanimously in favor of a resolution to engage a Milwaukee-based law firm for the suit.
Corporation Counsel Joseph Ruf compared the proposed lawsuit — broached at the Counties Association’s annual conference, which ran from Sept. 24-26 at the Kalahari Resort and Convention Center in Wisconsin Dells — to a suit about 20 years ago against the tobacco industry, in which the industry and state governments reached a $206 billion settlement. Wisconsin sold its share of the settlement, $5.9 billion, in exchange for an immediate payout of $1.3 billion. About $450 million of that was used to balance the state budget.
The resolution requires the approval of the full County Board.
The Counties Association is asking all 72 counties to join the suit, and some already have, Ruf said.
Similar committees in Sauk and Dodge counties already have approved the measure, which still requires full board approval there.
The resolution calls for engaging the law firm of von Briesen and Roper, which is based in Milwaukee but has offices in several other Wisconsin cities.
The thinking behind suing the pharmaceutical industry, according to Ruf, is that the industry bears some responsibility for the widespread addiction to opium-based drugs. Many of these addictions start with prescription painkillers.
“They made these drugs. They made lots of these drugs. They made money on these drugs,” Ruf said.
Some of the costs that counties bear as a direct result of the opioid addiction epidemic, he said, include law enforcement, jail operation and programs such as Columbia County’s medication-assisted treatment program and its new drug court.
Committee member Kirk Konkel of Portage had numerous questions, the first of which was addressed — whether the county would be responsible for paying the lawyers up front.
“I don’t know of any law firms that work for nothing,” he said.
Ruf said the von Briesen firm would handle the case on a contingency basis, with no participating counties paying any upfront fees. Then, the law firm would get 35 percent of whatever settlement or judgment results from the suit, plus expenses.
Whatever money is left would be divided among participating counties, Ruf said — but it’s highly likely that the division would not be even, and that metropolitan counties would get larger portions of the suit’s proceeds because they would be able to establish their drug-related costs are higher.
But even if the suit is eventually filed, it could be years, even decades, before it’s resolved — meaning, Ruf said, that no county will see any money from the pharmaceutical companies anytime soon.
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City of Gadsden to take part in opioid lawsuit
Oct 10, 2017 | Gasden Times (AL)
By Michael Rodgers
As the country continues to fight a growing opioid epidemic, the Gadsden City Council voted Tuesday to pursue a civil law remedy instead of solely focusing on criminal issues.
The council approved a resolution with a consortium of national law firms, including Cusimano, Roberts & Mills of Gadsden, to represent the city in a lawsuit against opioid distributors.
“The litigation focuses on the wholesale distributors and their role in the diversion of millions of prescription opiates into the illicit market which has resulted in opioid addiction, abuse, morbidity and mortality,” the agreement states.
Because there is a recovery-based contingent fee, any legal fees would be paid out of money awarded during a settlement.
There is no cost to the city, and the city would also not be obligated to pay legal fees if the case is not successful.
“There is an epidemic of opioids in this country, and Alabama is unfortunately one of the worst states in the union,” Greg Cusimano said during the city council meeting.
Cusimano said statistics show that Gadsden has 155 opioid prescriptions per 100 people, which makes it the sixth worst city nationally for opioid prescriptions per capita.
He said the cost to cities, counties, law enforcement and other first responders is “immense” in trying to handle the situation.
During the pre-council meeting, Council President Deverick Williams listed expenses the city incurs, including police overtime, nuisance property abatements, emergency responses and antidote medications when overdoses are found.
Williams said the city has been looking at a way to be aggressive on the issue without victimizing citizens.
“Ultimately, what we’ve come up with, and what we see as it relates to this issue, is that it does create a significant nuisance issue,” he said.
Diandra Debrosse, of Zarzaur, Mujumdar & Debrosse in Birmingham, said that federal law requires opioid distributors to report to law enforcement.
“It’s set up where they are required to report to the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration), and they haven’t done that,” Cusimano said.
He said the reports should include if there was overuse or an unusually large number of prescriptions in certain areas.
“They’ve made a lot of money, but they haven’t done that,” he said.
“We think litigation is saying that it’s fine to make money, but if you’re causing people to become addicted, you’re going to have to pay some of that money back,” Debrosse said.
Debrosse said that three distributors control 85 percent of the opioid market: McKesson Corp., AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health.
Council member Ben Reed asked what would be done about doctors writing excessive prescriptions, and Debrosse said it was their understanding that there is a federal pilot program being put in place by some U.S. attorneys to put a stop to that pipeline.
City of Gadsden lawyer Lee Roberts pointed out that several local doctors had also recently lost their medical licenses because of related issues.
Any measures that successfully cut down on the number of opioid prescriptions have other consequences.
Debrosse said that people addicted to prescription opioids often turn to heroin, an illegal opium-based drug, and areas have seen an increase in heroin use as “pill mill clinics” have been shut down.
Roberts said money recovered from the lawsuit would be managed locally and focus on treating those facing addiction.
“We would like to have funds from the distributors set up to have centers in this city to help treat that problem,” Roberts said, but he said the city doesn’t currently have money to do that.
The council also authorized an agreement with the Etowah County Commission to pave Hinds Road.
The cost is $17,289, and half of that total, $8,644.50, will come from the city. The other half will come from County Commissioner Carolyn Parker’s District 5 discretionary fund.
The city accepted a $14,204.67 grant from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management for 10 more trailers to be used in the city’s recycling program and amended the budget to reflect that grant.
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Christie says it's "not good" that Trump hasn't declared opioid emergency
Oct 11, 2017 | Associated Press
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Tuesday "it's not good" that President Donald Trump has yet to declare the opioid crisis a national emergency.
Trump appointed the fellow Republican to chair his opioid commission, whose signature recommendation was an emergency declaration.
Christie said Tuesday that the commission's recommendations are "lessened"without the declaration, but he says it's too soon to say whether not declaring one has made things worse.
"I think the problem is too big to say that if he had declared an emergency two months ago that it would make a significant difference in two months," Christie said. "But I would also say you can't get those two months back. And so it's not good that it hasn't been done yet."
The commission contends the declaration is needed to empower the Cabinet to address the crisis and force Congress to focus on funding agencies to address overdose deaths. Trump already has said the crisis amounts to an emergency, but the White House has described the declaration usually reserved for natural disasters as an "involved process."
A White House spokesperson didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday.
Christie echoed earlier comments on Tuesday, saying the administration has told him the "legal" issues are involved, but he said he didn't push for further details. He did, though, add that the opioid crisis is different from a natural disaster — such as a storm — because the drug crisis doesn't have an endpoint.
The White House commission that Christie chaired estimated about 142 deaths each day from drug overdoses mean the death toll from the epidemic is "equal to September 11th every three weeks. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that in 2015, they killed more than 52,000 Americans.
Christie on Tuesday also unveiled a series of recommendations from a state commission, including allowing emergency medical technicians to use more of the overdose drug naloxone to treat people overdosing from fentanyl.
The antidote is capped at 2 milligrams under current regulations but officials report they need 4 milligrams to successfully revive people from fentanyl overdoses, Christie said.
He said the changes wouldn't likely require legislation and he expects most of them to be done administratively. He said he doesn't expect them to carry any cost beyond the roughly $200 million in anti-opioid initiatives he rolled out in September.
The 26-page report stems from a January executive order declaring opioid addiction a public health crisis. Its members included state Cabinet officials and was chaired by Charles McKenna, who is the CEO of New Jersey's Schools Development Authority and a former chief counsel to Christie.
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Oct 10, 2017 | KXXV (ABC)
By Waco, TX
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/30019554?token=54de8c63-dff9-4aab-b895-c5415431ff50
Rough Transcript: it's been a little over a week since an east texas county became the first in our state to sue several pharmaceutical companies... claiming they played a role in the on-going opioid epidemic. we told you last week... upshur county is suing pfizer, allergan, and johnson and johnson... among other companies. tonight we're hearing from doctors in that area who describe what the epidemic has been like in the past few years. they say its part of their regular job now to be on the lookout for people trying to dupe them into prescribing pain pills. no super: "and we hav patients come in who state that they're from out of town and that they lost their prescription and that their doctor won't answer their calls you don't want to not treat people that are hurting so it becomes very tricky trying to do the right thing. certain red flags and warning signs come up on certain patients and we have to tell them no." smith county... where tyler is... hired two law firms last week and is considering joing upshur county's lawsuit.
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Oct 11, 2017 | KAUZ (CBS)
By Wichita Falls, TX
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/30019562?token=54de8c63-dff9-4aab-b895-c5415431ff50
Rough Transcript: Some texas counties are suing pharmaceutical companies -- over the opioid crisis.... those companies are being accused of using deceptive marketing -- to downpl opioids... jolina okazaki has the story... they're calling it an "opioid epidemic. from brand names like oxycontin or vicodin, several pharmaceutical companies like purdue pharma and abbott laboratories are getting sued by several states, even counties in texas. upshur county in east texas has filed a lawsuit, with claims that the companies are downplaying the dangers of opioids in their marketing tactics. a problem they say is what's leading to opioid addiction in the us. "each entity has massive cost associated with 7:33 AMhealthcare, with law enforcement, with jails. by promising they are not addictive, that they're safe for chronic pain." "at least six other texas counties are expected to follow suit, but not midland county. county officials tell me it's not within their discretion to file a lawsuit against a company, when the problem doesn't fall on them, but actually, the user." "i think it's foolish why are you going after a pharmaceutical company? i mean, they just make the stuff. again, it falls back on the person. it's the people that are abusing it. the drug is for a good reason and for people in dire need of it. it's an answer to a prayer. people abuse it. when you abuse it, you'll have people die, hooked on it and can't get off of it. it's a hard situation." both ector and midland county say there hasn't been a problem with opioid usage anyway. since the drugs that are mostly abused in both counties are either meth, marijuana and cocaine. texas attorney general ken paxton is investigating the industry wit other attorneys general to serve subpoenas on eight pharmaceutical companies. paxton says the investigation will lp them determine the appropriate course of action to take. in 20-15 -- california had more than four- thousand deaths from opioidoverdoses... ohio and pennsylvania had more than three- thousand -- while texas had over two-thousand deaths...
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Oct 10, 2017 | WABC (ABC)
By New York, NY
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/30019585?token=54de8c63-dff9-4aab-b895-c5415431ff50
Rough Transcript: the city of newark has filed a lawsuit against a dozen opioid manufacturers. the mayor announcing the action today. the suit says nearly a dozen drug makers including the manufacturer of oxyconton didn't make clear the risk of the addiction.
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Oct 10, 2017 | WTTV (CBS)
By Indianapolis, IN
Video Link: http://app.criticalmention.com/app/#clip/view/30019589?token=54de8c63-dff9-4aab-b895-c5415431ff50
indianapolis city leaders announced they are taking drug makers and distributors to court over the opioid epidemic. the city plans on suing the industry that profits from the sale of addictive pain killers. indy will write its lawsuit based on a similar suit filed in west virginia. the lawyers representing indy say last year there were 72 opioid prescriptions written for every 100 marion county residents... which is above the national average.
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