Stock image.
Brunswick, GA— Attorneys Monday debated who should bear responsibility for the sweeping fallout of opioid addiction, as a first-of-its-kind, private-plaintiff jury trial over the opioid epidemic opened in Georgia against three drug distributors. Poppell, et al. v. Cardinal Health, Inc., et al., CE19-00472.
Cardinal Health, McKesson Corporation, and J M Smith Corporation, which supplied Georgia pharmacies with opioids such as oxycodone, face claims brought by 21 plaintiffs alleging injuries caused by parents' and other family members’ addiction to the drugs. The case, seeking damages under Georgia's Drug Dealer Liability Act, is believed to be the first such state court suit brought by private plaintiffs to face a jury.
On Monday, Griffin Durham Tanner & Clarkson’s James Durham, representing the plaintiffs, walked jurors through the rise in opioid abuse in Georgia throughout the 2000s. Durham said the DEA had warned the companies about the growth in illegal opioid sales and use. But, despite that warning, he said the defendants failed to perform adequate due diligence when supplying pharmacies that bore tell-tale signs of filling "pill mill" and other improper prescriptions. That failure, Durham said, helped swell illegal sale, use, and addiction.
Durham noted that, in 2006, the year the DEA issued its warning, the three companies distributed a total of 45 million oxycodone pills in Georgia. By 2012, that number had doubled, and, when added to the hydrocodone pills supplied, totaled roughly 222 million pills in the state, or enough for every Georgian to receive 22 pills that year.
“What was their response to the dramatic rise of prescription drug abuse and the years of DEA warnings? It was a flood,” Durham said. “They flooded this state and this community with opioids.”
But the defendants argue they are simply high-level suppliers of the drugs and are not responsible for how and to whom they are ultimately sold at the consumer level.
In his opening Monday, HunterMaclean’s Randall Jordan, representing McKesson, told jurors that patient privacy laws limited the due diligence the drug distributor could perform when supplying medication. And he added the company’s role in the opioid supply line was similarly limited, with the company never actually making the drug, promoting it to doctors, or dispensing it directly to consumers.
“All McKesson does, ladies and gentlemen, is deliver. And it delivers the total amount of pills or medications, or anything else… a pharmacy orders,” Jordan said. “McKesson doesn’t deliver individual prescriptions.”
Cardinal's attorney, Williams & Connolly’s Andrew Keys, agreed, characterizing Cardinal’s business as “logistics.” He added the company worked to flag improper orders from pharmacies.
“Cardinal Health’s system to identify and block suspicious orders worked as it should,” Keys said.
And J M Smith’s attorney, Nicholas Salter, of Fox Rothschild, contended the opioid epidemic was caused by a changing medical standard, and driven by healthcare professionals and opioid manufacturers.
“At the end of the day, after listening to all of this, they’ve got the wrong defendants,” Salter said.
Trial in the case is expected to last about a month. CVN is streaming the trial and will provide updates on proceedings via its news page.
Email Arlin Crisco at acrisco@cvn.com.
Related information
Not a subscriber?
