Landmark Opioid Trial Begins with Legal Blame-Game in West Virginia

In a landmark opioid case that began on Monday, brought by two counties and a city in West Virginia, attorneys for three gigantic drug manufacturers came out swinging, refusing to take any responsibility.

Attorneys argued, in part, that their companies cannot be held responsible for the West Virginia opioid epidemic, with one lawyer explaining they are but "logistics companies."

The attorneys argued that the court could not blame these three drug manufacturers for the opioid crisis at all.

At issue are similar lawsuits already used in over 3,000 local and national court cases alleging that drug distributors are responsible for creating a "public nuisance" by allowing large volumes of opioids to overwhelm towns and counties.

Simultaneously, two other trials are being held in California now and New York in June, with similar charges against giant drug firms. Johnson & Johnson is offering to pay $26 billion to settle about 3,000 opioid cases across the US. Still, West Virginia attorneys said their expected cut of one percent, about $260,000,000 from this payout, is not enough.

The three largest drug companies in the US, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson, sent their attorneys into the opening day of court in US District Court in Charleston, West Virginia, armed with allegations against numerous other parties in a blame-based defense strategy.

Opening statements by the defense focused upon the idea that their companies cannot be responsible for the opioid epidemic in West Virginia or elsewhere.

Photo Source: Adobe Stock Image Instead, attorneys told the court it should be looking at numerous others to hold accountable for the drug epidemic. The attorneys said those to blame for the drug epidemic include doctors who prescribed drugs too freely to patients; the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for not handling the high volume of drugs entering West Virginia, and drug manufacturers, such as Purdue, for marketing OxyContin as non-addictive so hospitals and doctors would prescribe them for patients.

"AmerisourceBergen did not cause the opioid crisis," said Robert Nicholas, a lawyer for AmerisourceBergen. "It's impossible to look at the epidemic without focusing on doctors, on Purdue, on the failure of government agencies and a host of socioeconomic factors and criminal behavior."

The drug manufacturers are being sued by the West Virginia city of Huntington and surrounding Cabell County. Reportedly, this area has the most prominent drug death numbers in the country. Local officials accuse the drug corporations of fueling the opioid crisis by shipping "mountains" of pain pills to West Virginia without any due diligence.

In court, Huntington attorney Anne McGinness Kearse said, "The pain, death and destruction to community cannot be overstated. The volume of pills that entered this community and resulting harms can't be fixed overnight. It will take time, it will take money, but it can be done."

The local cost to rehabilitate the entire West Virginia area due to the opioid crisis is estimated to be about $2.6 billion. Local officials are saying they expect it will take about fifteen years to complete the project.

McGinness Kearse told the court the plan would not eliminate 100 percent of the Opioid problem in the area but that it would help restore the community "as a whole."

Attorney for Cabell County Paul Farrell Jr. said they would offer evidence that the drug companies sold a tremendous amount of pills to feed the Opioid epidemic in West Virginia. Farrell said there were many "black flags" that the firms should have noticed, primarily due to booming sales numbers.

McKesson attorney Paul Schmidt disagreed, saying that "Every one of those prescriptions dispensed was supposed to be dispensed because of a doctor sitting across from a patient."

US District Judge David Faber is presiding over the trial and is considering the evidence as the finder of fact instead of a jury. The specific amount of damages the plaintiffs are seeking from the drug manufacturers is unknown.