News Roundup: Opioid Suit Filing

Grand Traverse County is joining at least 60 other counties across the U.S. in suing pharmaceutical companies for their role in the country’s opioid crisis – with Leelanau County also considering a similar lawsuit.

A legal team comprised of local, state and national attorneys – including Traverse City-based Smith Johnson, Farmington Hills’ Bernstein Law Firm and New York City’s Weitz and Luxemberg – has offered to represent both Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties in suing pharmaceutical companies who have manufactured or sold prescription opioid drugs. The counties do not have to pay any legal costs unless the lawsuit is successful. In the event of a win in the court, the legal team would keep 30 percent of recovered damages as a fee.

...Grand Traverse County Deputy Civil Counsel Christopher Forsyth told commissioners he believed it would be “worthwhile for the county to join in the litigation,” calling the lawsuit “an important tool…in law enforcement’s toolbox in dealing with this crisis that we’re facing.” Referencing a number of overdose deaths in Traverse City in recent weeks, Commissioner Sonny Wheelock pointed out that recent county budget discussions included talk on the “overwhelming need for additional drug enforcement for our sheriff’s department.”

“This is an absolute crisis in our community,” Wheelock said. “If this (litigation) process does nothing but bring that to the forefront and allow the public to understand it or at least recognize it, I’m all in favor of anything we can do to bring this out because we…cannot by ourselves cure this problem.”

Pennock told commissioners he expected dozens of counties across Michigan and hundreds across the country will eventually join the litigation. Though not a class-action lawsuit, all the individual county lawsuits – each filed in their own court system and seeking their own individual damages – are expected to eventually be assigned to one federal judge. Pennock estimated the process could take four years from filing to a decision for Grand Traverse County.

Meanwhile, Leelanau County commissioners are also considering filing a similar lawsuit. The board discussed the same proposal that was made to Grand Traverse County commissioners by Smith Johnson, Bernstein Law Firm and Weitz and Luxemberg at their Tuesday meeting. County Administrator Chet Janik says commissioners are “interested in proceeding with” litigation against opioid manufacturers.

Read more in the TC Ticker.
 

December 19, 2017

Six Michigan counties and three cities filed multiple lawsuits overnight and this morning in U.S. District Court against 25 pharmaceutical companies -- including retail drug stores CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid and Costco -- for "their role in the record level of opioid drug use, death and cost to local and county government."

"The opioid crisis is the most fatal drug crisis on record in American history," said Attorney Mark BERNSTEIN as he announced the suits this morning in an autopsy room at the Macomb County Medical Examiner's Office. "Over 100 Americans die everyday from opioid overdose. Last year, here in Macomb County, more people lost their lives to opioid or heroin overdose than to gun violence and car accidents combined."

...Detroit Health Department Director Dr. Joneigh Khaldum said 64,000 people in the U.S. died from overdoses last year. In Michigan, the number was 1,600, and Detroit there were 300 deaths.

"I'm the director of the Detroit Health Department, but I'm also an ER doctor and I work in downtown Detroit. Unfortunately, I see too many patients who are suffering from addiction. I see people who are overdosing and I have to go to extreme medical measures just to save their life. We have to get them treatment. We have to hold our drug companies accountable and we have to hold our physicians accountable."

Traverse City Attorney Tim Smith said northern Michigan, on a per capita basis, is one of the hardest hit areas of the state.

"In Roscommon, the data up there is that they are filling two prescriptions per man, woman and child in that county," he said.

The communities involved in the suit are Macomb County, City of Detroit, Genesee County, Saginaw County, Grand Traverse County, Delta County, Chippewa County, City of Lansing, and City of Escanaba.

Among the companies targeted are Purdue Pharma, Cephalon, Teva Pharmaceutical, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceutical, Amerisourcesbergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson Corporation. Similar suits have been filed elsewhere.

A key charge in the suits is that the drug makers and distributors failed to notify the federal government when they received suspiciously large orders of opioids. The suits cite 10 specific instances in which Michigan doctors or their clinics were accused of being "pill mills," prosecuted and convicted.

"The DEA was never alerted by either opioid manufacturers or wholesale distributors of any of the foregoing 'pill mill' conspiracies," the lawsuit states. "Instead -- and despite their awareness of the suspicious nature of the foregoing enterprises -- manufacturers and wholesale distributors continued to supply them with prescription opioids."

More from MSU's Red Tape blog.

Leelanau County commissioners unanimously voted to join a class action lawsuit against the makers of popular opioids.

This comes a month after the Grand Traverse County board did the same.

The lawsuit’s purpose: demand the industry reimburse local governments for the costs of responding to the opioid crisis.

Last year, more than 200,000 deaths were blamed on the drugs.

In light of the recent deaths of four people in their county, commissioners tell us it’s important to stand against the epidemic.

“You need to be transparent. The information that I have is saying that it was not transparent about how addictive opiates were and so that’s one of the messages we really want pharmaceuticals to understand is that they have to let us know if something is addictive and they can’t put it out as a painkiller,” says chair for Leelanau County Board of Commissioners, William Bunek.

Read more at TV 9 & 10 News.
 

December 20, 2017

During a Dec. 19 press conference at the Macomb County Medical Examiner’s Office, Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel was joined by legal representatives Mark Bernstein, Paul Pennock and Tim Smith; Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan; and Macomb County Medical Examiner Daniel Spitz to discuss the lawsuit and why they’re doing something about the drug problem now.

...The lawsuit names large pharmaceutical companies including Purdue, Cephalon, Teva, Endo and Janssen, and retailers including CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid and Costco, stating that these retailers are responsible for their role in the record level of opioid drug use, deaths, and the subsequent cost to local and county governments.

The suit alleges “racketeering, aggressive overpromotion, fraudulent claims regarding the safety of prescription opioids, and reckless production and distribution of these highly addictive, dangerous substances in the name of soaring profits, amounting to billions of dollars.”

The lawsuit, which was filed Dec. 18 in the U.S. District Court in Detroit, is requesting that the court compel the defendants to remedy the exorbitant costs to taxpayers for the increased burdens to their citizens and communities.

...“Mortality rates from opioid overdose have climbed dramatically. Since 1999, overdose deaths due to prescription opioids have continued to rise. And in 2002, unintentional overdose deaths from prescription opioids surpassed those from heroin and cocaine nationwide. The crisis in opioid overdose deaths has reached epidemic proportions in the United States (33,091 in 2015), and currently exceeds all other drug-related deaths or traffic fatalities,” the lawsuit states.

This year, 175 Americans have died every day as a result of the opioid epidemic, the lawsuit states. Since the 2000s, 75 percent of opioid abusers have begun their addiction through prescription opioids, according to the lawsuit.

In Macomb County, Hackel said opioid-related deaths rose 134 percent from 2015 to 2016.

More in the Mount Clemens-Clinton-Harrison Journal.
 

December 28, 2017

The Escanaba City Council has decided to join a nation-wide mass lawsuit against manufacturers of opioids in an effort to curb marketing of these products, which are contributing to the local drug epidemic.

...Escanaba’s decision to join more than 100 municipalities across the country in the legal suit was made during a special meeting Friday morning, pending the city attorney’s review of the lawsuit agreement, which took place later Friday followed by council’s signing of the engagement letter.

...“Any proactive steps to curb the opioid epidemic, I support,” LaMarche commented following Friday’s meeting.

Prior to council’s decision on Friday, Timothy Smith of Smith & Johnson Attorneys of Traverse City, updated council on the lawsuit, explaining the first municipality to jump on board was Suffolk County, N.J., followed by more than 100 municipalities to date, including Delta County.

Smith explained the attorneys involved in the case are paying the legal costs up front. Any monetary awards resulting from the lawsuit will be used to reimburse these costs with 30 percent of the remaining award monies going to the lawyers and the remaining 70 percent going to the participating municipalities.

“I don’t see a (financial) risk to the municipal clients we have,” said Smith. “We (the attorneys) only get paid if we’re successful in our case.”

For judicial economy of the lawsuits, all the individual legal complaints will be placed under the jurisdiction of one federal judge and one federal court in the Northern District of Ohio, Smith explained, noting later the litigation could last two to five years.

Smith told council members he has been looking at suing “pill mills” for many years and was waiting for Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette to engage in a lawsuit. In September, Schuette said he would not pursue a lawsuit, but he will join 40 other attorney generals in investigating activities of opioid manufacturers, said Smith.

The attorney said federal fining of opioid manufacturers has not been working because companies apologize and pay the multi-million-dollar fines and are back in business. Distribution centers must be held accountable to strict rules of manufacturing and operation, he said.

More from the Escanaba Daily Press.
 

January 4, 2018

Mason County’s litigation committee Wednesday approved hiring three law firms to represent the county in national litigation against culpable pharmaceutical manufacturers or distributors of opioid analgesics.

The law firms are Weitz and Luxenberg, Sam Bernstein Law Firm and Smith and Johnson Attorneys.

Tim Smith of Smith and Johnson Attorneys of Traverse City presented the idea to the full Mason County Board of Commissioners Dec. 27 and answered questions about the suit.

...Smith said he has already lined up many cities and counties to participate in the suit and said money earned by the case could be used by the county to offset costs associated with responding to problems caused by opioid abuse in the county. Those costs would include arrests and prosecution as well as health care and child services.

The suit, he said, also has a second objective, which is to have the court order violators to conduct business as they are supposed to do, which is to include an effective system to detect and report suspicious orders for controlled substances.

More from the Ludington Daily News.


Tuesday, December 19th 2017

 

Tuesday, December 19th 2017

“Over 64,000 people died of opioid overdoses last year in America,” Said Dr. Joneign Khaldun, director and health officer for the City of Detroit. “In Michigan, the number’s over 1,600 people last year alone. More people are dying from opioid overdoses thsn they are from guns and from car crashes, it's incredible.”

Grand Traverse and Chippewa Counties, along with 7 other Michigan municipalities, just filed lawsuits against several pharmaceutical companies. They join nearly 100 other communities across the country.

...“There are counties in northern Michigan that are harder hit,” said attorney Tim Smith with Smith & Johnson in Traverse City. “Looking at it from a per capita standpoint as far as the number of deaths, as far as the prescription rates.”

The hope of the lawsuit is to recover the costs spent fighting this epidemic, but also force the companies to change their policies to prevent this moving forward.

“We're sending a very clear message that Michigan is now engaged in this litigation,” said Smith. “Michigan now recognizes at the county level and the city level that the damage these companies have caused is enough. It's time to hold them accountable and recover those tax payer monies.”

Many other northern Michigan communities are considering joining the lawsuit, including Leelanau County, which its commission approved joining the lawsuit 7-0.

Full story from UpNorthLive.


January 12, 2018

While some members expressed uncertainty and others wholeheartedly voiced support, the Otsego County Board of Commissioners ultimately voted in favor of retaining a group of firms already representing several Michigan counties and cities as outside counsel for opioid litigation.

Board members had two resolutions before them at Tuesday’s regular meeting for retaining one of two groups of firms, either Smith & Johnson of Traverse City, the Sam Bernstein Law Firm of Farmington Hills and Weitz & Luxenberg of New York, which has an office in Detroit, or Crueger Dickinson of Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, Simmons Hanly Conroy of New York and Von Briesen & Roper of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The board unanimously chose representation by Smith & Johnson, Bernstein and Weitz & Luxenberg.

...According to data from Smith & Johnson, Bernstein and Weitz & Luxenberg, which the firms presented at the Nov. 28 commissioners meeting, “People can develop an addiction to opioids astonishingly quickly. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) found that if patients took opioid pain relievers for just 8 days — 13.1 % would still be using opiods a year later.”

Glasser further added at the meeting, “Now we have a problem. Where is the enforcement going to come from to get these drugs off the street? Who is going to stop it?”

He said that he had spoken with many people on this issue and “90 percent of those people say do something,” so he was in favor of the county taking action to join in litigation.

Commissioner Doug Johnson also agreed.

“We should participate,” he said. “It is better than doing nothing. Changes are being made. There are plans to attack the opioid problem that have come up lately.”

Ken Borton, commission chair, also gave his opinion.

“I support it,” he said. “... It is not about how much we get (in a settlement), it is about sending a message to the pharmaceuticals.”

More in the Gaylord Herald-Times.


February 3, 2018

An attorney representing a firm suing the nation’s largest opioid manufacturers and retail pharmacies will attend the Osceola County Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 6.

Timothy Smith, of Traverse City-based law firm Smith and Johnson, is expected to be present at the meeting to discuss the lawsuit.

...The law firm, which has offices in Traverse City, Lansing and Grand Rapids, has solicited municipalities across Northern Michigan to join the litigation.

The city of Detroit, Grand Traverse County, the city of Lansing, Delta County and Saginaw County have agreed to retain Smith and Johnson. They will join the city of Escanaba and the counties of Macomb, Genesee, and Chippewa. Recently, the counties of Dickinson and Marquette have elected to join the suit. Detroit-based Weitz and Luxenberg and The Sam Bernstein Law Firm are also involved in the case.

The case targets opioid manufacturers such as Purdue L.P., Teva Pharmaceuticals and Endo International PLC for failing to monitor and report suspicious orders of prescription opioids — such as OxyContin, Percocet, Actiq and Opana — as well as their "aggressive misinformation campaign aimed at increasing public consumption of highly addictive opioids,‘ which, court documents said, "contributed to a vast increase in opioid overuse and addiction."

The case also targets retail pharmacies such as CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid and Costco for foisting “a perverse incentive system on their employees that prevented their pharmacists from meeting their obligations under federal and Michigan law.‘

More in the Cadillac News.


Feb 8, 2018

Osceola County has entered a multi-district lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies for their alleged role in the opioid addiction epidemic. In a 5-2 vote on Feb. 6, the Osceola County Board of Commissioners retained the law firm Smith and Johnson to prosecute pharmaceutical companies for damages incurred from opioid addiction.

The Traverse City-based law firm currently represents more than 40 Michigan municipal governments.

Attorney Timothy Smith explained that the lawsuit is not a conventional class action and that Osceola County would have its own case in federal court as part of what is known as a mass tort.

Osceola County, along 200 other municipalities from across the country, would all file as a single unit in court, but each would retain control over its own case.

"Every single municipality that is currently involved across the country has its own lawsuit," Smith said. "The beauty of that is that rather than being a part of a big gang of plaintiffs involved in the singular suit with a singular resolution and then arguing at the end over who gets what, you have your own suit. Your county has control."

Smith said costs incurred during the case are based on contingent fee litigation, meaning fees are payable only if the case is won.

"If we are not successful, then you do not owe anything for our time — we're not asking you to reimburse us for the cost," Smith said.

Full story from the Cadillac News.


Feb 8, 2018

Osceola County has entered a multi-district lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies for their alleged role in the opioid addiction epidemic. In a 5-2 vote on Feb. 6, the Osceola County Board of Commissioners retained the law firm Smith and Johnson to prosecute pharmaceutical companies for damages incurred from opioid addiction.

The Traverse City-based law firm currently represents more than 40 Michigan municipal governments.

Attorney Timothy Smith explained that the lawsuit is not a conventional class action and that Osceola County would have its own case in federal court as part of what is known as a mass tort.

Osceola County, along 200 other municipalities from across the country, would all file as a single unit in court, but each would retain control over its own case.

"Every single municipality that is currently involved across the country has its own lawsuit," Smith said. "The beauty of that is that rather than being a part of a big gang of plaintiffs involved in the singular suit with a singular resolution and then arguing at the end over who gets what, you have your own suit. Your county has control."

Smith said costs incurred during the case are based on contingent fee litigation, meaning fees are payable only if the case is won.

"If we are not successful, then you do not owe anything for our time — we're not asking you to reimburse us for the cost," Smith said.

Full story from the Cadillac News.


April 5, 2018

Tim Smith is an attorney with the law firm Smith and Johnson who was hired by Osceola, Wexford and many other Michigan counties for the lawsuit.

“If they can come to an agreement so much is in play,” Smith said.

“Fire department, medical examiner, sheriff’s, jails, TNT officer — all that money spent on this epidemic. We’re fighting for that,” Smith said.

So, if the parties agree on a settlement, it will be at one of these conferences, and they could come to that agreement at the next conference or not at all.

If they can agree on terms, then no case goes to trial. However, the communities accusing actors in the pharmaceutical industry for causing the opioid epidemic have stiff demands, and it’s unlikely that an agreement will come any time soon.

“The groups will continue to meet and gain ground where we can, but at some point at the end of 2018 someone will say ‘uncle,’” Smith said.

All cases filed have been transferred to the northern district of Ohio, where federal judge Dan Polster took them on and agreed to tackle what has been called one of the largest and most complex pieces of litigation in history.

...If Polster is successful, Smith explained, the resolution would look similar to the way tobacco companies were reigned-in in the 1990s — like restrictions on manufacturing and marketing such as no more sales staff at doctors’ offices. In addition, it may include criminal plea agreements for companies that violated federal laws and regulations.

“(Judge Polster) recognized those investigations and those finds didn’t change anything. Those companies wrote checks and went back to business as usual,” Smith said....If the parties cannot reach an agreement, then each of the 200 cases could be tried individually.

Smith said each of these cases could be carried out as “bellwether cases,” where the results of the cases tried from a variety of plaintiffs like big states, small counties, and urban and rural communities, could gauge the success of all cases.

“It’ll be used to get an idea of what value is of these claims,” Smith said. “In a trial, the jury can say the claim (of the city, county or state) is worth x and now people work to resolve claims have an idea of what they’re worth because the jury in those instances chose the value x.”

Regardless of how the settlement or potential trials turn out, Smith said there has already been a change in the way pharmaceutical companies do business.

“From a societal standpoint, the suit is already starting to have an impact we wanted when we started,” Smith said.

The suit is not only about recovering taxpayer money. The second thing parties in the lawsuit are asking for is to change the way pharmaceutical companies do business — such as manufacturing, marketing, and how the drugs are distributed, Smith said.

...“We’re not trying to win the lottery,” Smith said. “We’re trying to clean up the mess they made in our backyard.”

More in the Weekly Voice.