Judge rules Baltimore's $11 billion opioid lawsuit can head to trial

Baltimore’s lawsuit against opioid manufacturers and distributors will proceed to a trial next month after a city judge on Thursday denied motions from the companies to throw out the case.

The decision is a pivotal one for the city’s lawsuit, which claims drug makers and distributors flooded Baltimore with millions of legal opioid prescriptions while they downplayed their products’ addictiveness and targeted doctors with aggressive marketing.

Baltimore City Circuit Judge Lawrence Fletcher-Hill denied the companies’ motions for summary judgment, ruling that a jury can decide the outcome of the case. Trial is set to begin Sept. 16.

Baltimore is seeking nearly more than $11 billion in damages to help the city implement an opioid abatement plan that includes drug treatment, overdose prevention and other services. Jurors will decide what damages the companies must pay, but Fletcher-Hill will hold a separate bench trial afterward to assess how much each of the defendants should pay, if they are found liable, toward an opioid abatement plan.

The city previously declined to participate in a massive global settlement with several major opioid companies that the state of Maryland and most local jurisdictions joined two years ago, choosing instead to go it alone in hopes of winning more money.

Now the city’s lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson, McKesson, Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen (now called Cencora), Teva Pharmaceuticals and Walgreens can proceed to a trial, though Thursday’s rulings could also induce the companies to try and settle the case.

Last week, Baltimore announced it had settled with CVS, one of the defendants in the lawsuit, for $45 million. The city also previously settled with another company, Allergan, for the same amount. Both companies were relatively small contributors to the glut of opioid pills that bombarded the Baltimore area. Other companies still in the lawsuit were responsible for more than 80% of the opioids sent to Baltimore pharmacies, the city has said.

The lawsuit centers on a public nuisance claim, or the argument that drug companies interfered with public health by distributing opioids so widely.

The companies had warning that their products posed a risk but marketed and distributed them without concern for how many addictive painkillers were being sent across the nation, the city claims.

The drug companies argued their actions were too distant from the harms that have occurred in Baltimore, which had a well-known heroin problem before the prescription opioid epidemic. The companies asked Fletcher-Hill to toss the case, arguing that the city failed to identify specific orders of opioids that were diverted for illicit use.

Fletcher-Hill largely rejected those requests, though he agreed to dismiss the city’s negligence claims against the companies. The case will proceed only on the public nuisance claim.

“As a matter of law, the city has alleged interference with public rights that relate to both the public health and the public safety of residents of Baltimore city,” the judge said.

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