|
 Attorney General Mike Hunter in a brief filed in a state court in
Norman, Oklahoma, argued that evidence presented during the first
trial nationally in litigation over the epidemic showed J&J was "at
the root of this crisis."
The state's lawyers said evidence presented during the seven-week
trial that began in May showed J&J's decades-long marketing campaign
convinced doctors and the public that opioids could be a "go-to,
first-line treatment for everything from headaches to sprained
ankles."
They said J&J and its subsidiaries "abandoned all standards of
responsible conduct in their blind resolve to make money from their
drugs," creating a public nuisance in the form of an opioid crisis
that since 2000 has killed 6,000 Oklahomans.
Opioids were involved in almost 400,000 overdose deaths from 1999 to
2017, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
J&J countered in its own brief that while opioid abuse is a real
problem, its painkillers, Duragesic and Nucynta, were a tiny
fraction of all opioids prescribed in Oklahoma. It also said its
marketing claims had scientific support.
New Jersey-based J&J's lawyers also wrote that the state's case
rested on "radical theories" unmoored from more than a century of
court cases interpreting the state's public nuisance law, which it
said only applies to property disputes.
But the state's lawyers said applying the state's public nuisance
statute to the epidemic was not an unprecedented expansion of the
law.
[to top of second column] |
"While this opioid crisis is unprecedented, this exercise of the
State's power is not," the state's lawyers wrote.
The briefs marked the final arguments both sides would make to Judge
Thad Balkman, who is expected to rule next month.
The case is one of around 2,000 lawsuits filed nationally by states,
counties and cities seeking to hold drug companies responsible for
the opioid epidemic.
The Oklahoma case is being closely watched by plaintiffs in other
opioid lawsuits, particularly in 1,900 cases pending before a
federal judge in Ohio who has been pushing for a settlement ahead of
an October trial.
OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries
Ltd were originally also defendants in the case. Purdue reached a
$270 million settlement with Oklahoma in March and Teva settled for
$85 million in May. Both deny wrongdoing.
(This story has been refiled to correct tenth paragraph to say
ruling is expected next month.)
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
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