Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay $572 million to the state of Oklahoma on Monday, after a judge found that the company deceptively marketed opioids and bore some responsibility for the state’s opioid crisis. The case is one of hundreds of opioid-related lawsuits ongoing around the country, and as the first one to reach a verdict, the decision is likely to reverberate beyond Oklahoma.
“You can argue that there are problems with the decision. You can argue that it’s a lot less than the $17 billion [Oklahoma] asked for. But you can’t take away the fact that we now have a decision, decided by a United States court, in which a large amount of damages were given,†says Nicolas Terry, executive director of the Hall Center for Law and Health at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law.
Two other pharmaceutical companies, Purdue Pharma and Teva, were initially defendants in the same Oklahoma suit, but settled separately rather than go to trial.
This week it was reported that Purdue Pharma offered to pay $10 billion to $12 billion to settle all of its pending state and federal opioid lawsuits. The Sackler family, which owns Purdue Pharma, said that they would contribute $3 billion and give up ownership of the company. The company would also declare bankruptcy. Terry says he does not think the Oklahoma decision triggered that proposed resolution, and that Purdue had probably been having those conversations for some time. Their decision to settle, though, compared with Johnson & Johnson's push towards trial, reflects the differences in the size of the companies and the company cultures, he says.
“You can argue that there are problems with the decision. You can argue that it’s a lot less than the $17 billion [Oklahoma] asked for. But you can’t take away the fact that we now have a decision, decided by a United States court, in which a large amount of damages were given,†says Nicolas Terry, executive director of the Hall Center for Law and Health at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law.
Two other pharmaceutical companies, Purdue Pharma and Teva, were initially defendants in the same Oklahoma suit, but settled separately rather than go to trial.
This week it was reported that Purdue Pharma offered to pay $10 billion to $12 billion to settle all of its pending state and federal opioid lawsuits. The Sackler family, which owns Purdue Pharma, said that they would contribute $3 billion and give up ownership of the company. The company would also declare bankruptcy. Terry says he does not think the Oklahoma decision triggered that proposed resolution, and that Purdue had probably been having those conversations for some time. Their decision to settle, though, compared with Johnson & Johnson's push towards trial, reflects the differences in the size of the companies and the company cultures, he says.
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