Calif. Judge Clears Drug Companies Off Opioid Liabilities

Calif. Judge Clears Drug Companies Off Opioid Liabilities

Introduction

A California jury has cleared four major drug companies from liabilities in the opioids epidemic litigation that demanded the companies to pay tens of billions of dollars to compensate for the opioid crisis.

Allergan, Endo, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and Teva are the companies involved in the litigation. All the companies faced similar allegations that they used tricky marketing strategies to increase sales of opioids.

The companies attorney said that their clients are not responsible for fueling the opioid crisis. He added that if the company would have been found liable for the epidemic, it would have had to pay for costly public health and drug treatment programs that were acceptable on the drugmakers' part.

According to the findings provided by the court, the plaintiffs failed to prove an actionable public nuisance against the defendants, and the marketing and promotion of the drugs were appropriate which were not intended to harm the users.

The current ruling is a significant victory for the drugmakers considering the ever-increasing number of opioid lawsuits against them.

As per the data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the nationwide death rate due to opioid overdose is soaring, with nearly 100,000 deaths of Americans in 12 months.