In 2014, when the first opioid lawsuits were filed against Purdue Pharma, Tiffinee Scott’s daughter was still years away from her fatal overdose from addictive prescription painkillers, including Purdue’s OxyContin, which she was taking to manage sickle cell pain.
That year, Dede Yoder’s teenage son was struggling with an addiction that began with an OxyContin prescription for a sports injury. He would die from an overdose in 2017, after attempting rehab eight times.
It would be years before Gary Carter’s son, who had been filching his grandparents’ OxyContin, would die from an overdose of fentanyl, an illicit opioid that many people who became addicted to prescription painkillers eventually turned to over the past decade.
The three families and others who have ended up suing Purdue shared their stories in letters to the Supreme Court, which will hear oral argument Monday on the remaining sticking point in the yearslong effort to settle litigation that has ballooned into nearly 3,000 cases. A multibillion-dollar agreement is at stake.
A ruling upholding the disputed provision would finally start the flow of payments from the company and its owners — members of the billionaire Sackler family — to cities, states, tribes and individuals to help them cope with the costs of the ongoing opioid crisis. It would also allow Purdue to emerge from bankruptcy restructuring as a public benefit company.
A ruling against the measure could blow up the painstakingly negotiated settlement, leaving the fate of the company and the urgently sought payments up in the air.
The court will consider the legality of a condition demanded by the Sacklers and approved by a bankruptcy judge: In exchange for paying up to $6 billion, the Sacklers insist on being shielded from lawsuits that anyone else might want to bring against them involving Purdue and opioids.
That liability shield is standard for businesses that file for bankruptcy, as Purdue has done. But the Sacklers…
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