When tobacco companies agreed to pay states $206 billion two decades ago to settle lawsuits over the public-health costs of smoking, cities and counties eagerly awaited their share. For the most part, it never came. Now, in similar litigation to hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable for the opioid crisis, municipalities aren’t waiting, the Wall Street Journal reports. Hundreds of cities, counties and Native American tribes have filed lawsuits, many suing before state attorneys general acted. The dueling tracks are coming to a head, with 38 state attorneys general opposing a plan by plaintiffs’ lawyers to form 33,000 cities, towns and counties—even those who haven’t sued—into one negotiating bloc to settle the opioid cases.
A crowd of 100 lawyers gathered this week to argue for and against the proposal before U.S. District Judge Dan Polster in Cleveland, who is overseeing the consolidation of 2,000 opioid cases in federal court. More than 1,600 local governments have sued players in the drug supply chain, but state attorneys general want them to back down. Virtually every state has filed its own opioid lawsuit in its state court. Some states fear that any deal reached in the Cleveland cases could leave the states on the outside looking in. Jonathan Blanton, a deputy attorney general in Ohio, argued that the proposal risks undercutting states’ rights to settle their own cases. State legislatures and attorneys general, he said, are best situated to “ensure the money goes to where the harm really is.” Local governments say they are at the front lines of the epidemic and are better placed to put settlement money to use. “We are the ones answering the 9/11 calls, dealing with overdoses in our library bathrooms, and seeing the impacts on families in our foster care system,” said Denver City Attorney Kristin Bronson.