Legal Liability for Opioid Deaths

The United States continues to face the crisis of opioid addiction. Many states have taken legal action against drug companies for their role in creating and perpetuating the opioid crisis. These lawsuits alleged that drug manufacturers and distributors improperly marketed and distributed these dangerous drugs, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Most of the lawsuits have settled, but victims of the defective products continue to suffer. If you have questions about taking part in a settlement related to opioid addiction or a fatal overdose, talk to a product liability lawyer for legal advice.

Deaths Caused by Opioids

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), opioid-related deaths have risen continuously since 1999. Opioid abuse is a public health crisis.

Often, the actual cause of death is not known at the time, and not always documented after the fact. This means the opioid overdose-related deaths may be undercounted.

Frequent overdosing on prescription opioids has led some large employers, municipalities, and nonprofits to provide training to first responders and health care professionals on opioid overdose prevention and the use of anti-overdose drugs such as Narcan and Naloxone.

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Can Healthcare Providers Be Liable?

One direction to point a finger in this crisis is at the medical doctors who prescribe opiate-based pain medications.

Are doctors accountable for prescribing and refilling hydrocodone, oxycodone, OxyContin, fentanyl, or other synthetic opioid prescriptions? That depends. More and more, doctors are facing liability for overprescribing addictive opioid drugs. A few medical professionals have even faced murder charges.

Frank Gallucci is a personal injury attorney in Cleveland who has represented local governments, cities, and companies in Ohio — as well as about 100 communities throughout the country — in class action opioid litigation. He has observed that most opioid addiction stems from legal prescription use.

“A lot of what we see is, for example, a young person who has a sports-related injury or chronic pain, gets hooked, and then next thing you know, they can’t get off it and they’re turning to diverted or illegal drugs. Now, fentanyl has been introduced, and drug overdose deaths are on the rise. I don’t talk to too many people in Ohio who don’t have a personal story connected to this. It’s every walk of life, every socioeconomic group.”

Medical malpractice and wrongful death claims have been on the rise against physicians for negligently prescribing addictive substances, resulting in overdoses and deaths. There are also claims against pharmacies and pharmacists for knowingly dispensing hundreds of thousands of unlawful prescriptions without a legitimate medical purpose.

Holding Big Pharma Accountable

In the 1990s, pharmaceutical companies began touting the class of opioid painkillers as non-addictive “wonder drugs” for treating pain. Studies have now shown these claims to be false and lead to prescription drug abuse.

Manufacturers and distributors are liable for injuries caused by dangerous or defective products they put on the market. Product liability cases involve design defects, manufacturing defects, and failure to warn defects.

Over 40 states have joined in multidistrict litigation (MDL) against drug manufacturers and distributors of oxycodone, hydrocodone, and related opioid drugs. For years, the drug companies promoted these highly addictive drugs as safe with a low risk of addiction. In addition, cities and counties have filed claims against Big Pharma. The litigants seek to recoup some of the expenses of fighting and responding to the opioid epidemic.

A number of municipalities and states, including Ohio, New Hampshire, Missouri, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and South Carolina, have likewise filed suits against Big Pharma.

Attorneys general in the majority of U.S. states are in discussions to develop a strategy for a unified mass tort effort. In all, more than 2,000 separate lawsuits have been initiated against opioid-producing drug companies. Most of these lawsuits resulted in settlements similar to those from tobacco lawsuits in the 1990s.

Understanding Opioid Lawsuits

After years of litigation, most of the opioid lawsuits involving the drug makers have settled out of court. States have settled opioid claims against pharmaceutical companies such as Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, Teva, and Allergan. States have also settled claims against chain pharmacies, including Kroger, Walmart, Walgreens, and CVS.

“The opioid lawsuit is against manufacturers and opioid distributors alike, essentially, for acting in concert to create this industry, and the belief that this is safe for long-term use and not addictive,” Gallucci explains. “There are also a few doctors named in the suit who were involved in credentialing companies and teaching physicians that this was proper behavior.”

Ohio has suffered an especially high toll from the scourge. “Depending on who you talk to, Ohio is either the hardest or second hardest hit state in the country,” says Gallucci.

“From 2000 to 2010, especially in southern Ohio, you had pain centers that were just popping up left and right, and there were literally lines out the door before they would open for business. There was a crackdown on these prescription painkillers’ pill mills,’ and what you saw was people who were heavily addicted at that point.”

Finding Legal Help

If you or a loved one has been affected by the opioid crisis, there may be some legal recourse available to you. Talk to a lawyer who can help assess where you or a family member’s circumstances fit into this landscape of civil liability litigation.

“Each case is unique in its own right,” Gallucci says. “Some are cases to bring right now, some are let’s wait and see.” Gallucci recommends that those with potential individual claims have their case assessed by a law firm with an experienced products liability attorney.