1/9/2018

DRUGS/LEGAL/PHARMA: “A federal judge is pushing for a swift resolution to hundreds of lawsuits filed by cities and counties over the opioid crisis, saying Tuesday [1-9-18] that too many people are dying each year from opioid abuse.
‘I don’t think anyone in the country is interested in a whole lot of finger pointing at this point, and I’m not either,’ U.S. District Judge Dan Polster said Tuesday at the first gathering, in a Cleveland courtroom that was packed, of lawyers involved in the sprawling opioid litigation.
Judge Polster is overseeing the consolidation of more than 200 cases filed in federal court by local governments, hospitals and other parties, all seeking to recoup the costs of opioid addiction from the manufacturers and distributors of the painkillers.
More than a dozen state attorneys general, including those in Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri and New Mexico, have also sued manufacturers and distributors in state courts. New suits are piling up each day as plaintiffs’ lawyers sign up additional clients… He urged both sides to reach an agreement—one that involves the reduction of pills to those who abuse them, rather than just a monetary payment—without enduring the protracted cost and hassle of litigation. ‘We don’t need briefs and we don’t need trials,’ the judge said. ‘None of those are going to solve what we’ve got.’
If a speedy resolution doesn’t work, he said, the lawyers will have to prepare a test case for trial.”

-Sara Randazzo, “Federal Judge Seeks Speedy Resolution of Opioid Lawsuits,” The Wall Street Journal online, Jan. 9, 2018 03:42pm