Weekly Mass Torts Bulletin 2021-July-19

Purdue Pharma will pay $200 million to New York State as a part of a $4.5 billion opioid settlement that includes drug treatment and prevention programs for the people affected by the opioid epidemic.

The settlement includes 15 other states seeking the claims against the company, but Purdue's bankruptcy reorganization plan where the company has agreed to pay the affected states resulted in the states giving up on the opposition.

The attorney general said that Purdue's owners, the Sackler family members, are mainly involved in fueling the opioid epidemic and have kept a low profile to prevent their image from getting thrashed in public. The attorney said that the family was aware of the epidemic. He further added that the owners should at least apologize to the people who lost their loved ones due to the opioid crisis.

The attorneys for the state said that shutting down the company is a better option as the Sackler family is wealthy enough to fight the legal battle that might go on for a long time. The attorneys even showed concern that the deal is pretty unfair, but it is required to help in funding the treatment of the affected people.

Apart from Purdue's $200 million settlement, Johnson & Johnson has also agreed to pay a $230 million settlement amount to treat drug-affected people and to ensure that no such epidemic spikes up in the future.

U.S. District Judge Dan Polster is overseeing the opioid MDL No. 2804, which was formed in October 2017. The former president of the U.S., Donald Trump, even declared a Public Health Emergency in 2017, as 72,000 Americans died due to the opioid epidemic.

Sackler family that owns Purdue Pharma and the company itself will pay $20 million to Maine over the opioid crisis caused in the state affecting numerous people.

Earlier, Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy to settle the pending cases against the company, including thousands of individual claims. All the lawsuits against the company allege that Purdue used deceptive marketing techniques to boost the sale of its product, OxyContin, which resulted in the opioid crisis for the past two decades across the country.

The Sackler family and Purdue Pharma have agreed to a federal jury's orders where the owner and the company need to pay $4.3 billion. The amount will help for the prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts of opioid-affected individuals across the country.

Maine has been one of the most hard-hit states because of the opioid crisis. Estimates state that this year the state will surpass the last year's death toll of 500 deaths because of opioid overdose.

Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey said no amount of money could undo the damage caused due to the opioid crisis. The loss is huge for the states and cities across the country, and people have lost their loved ones due to opioid overdose. The settlement will give some relief to the states and communities across the country. It will help to set up prevention, treatment, and recovery program to deal with the crisis.

The Sackler family will pay the settlement amount for the course of 9 years. It will even benefit thousands of victims who were affected because of the company's misconduct. Additionally, the family will be banned from the opioid business, and by 2024 the company will be sold or dissolved.

Earlier, Walmart was listed as one of the defendants in the multidistrict litigation (MDL) in Ohio with allegations that Walmart’s pharmacies improperly distributed opioids fueling the nationwide epidemic.

The MDL includes more than 2,000 opioid-related claims from the state, local, and tribal governments. The special master, David Cohen, who is overseeing the MDL discovery, ordered new declarations of Walmart witnesses by sanctioning the company for insurgence with a longstanding discovery order. The order states the defendants need to provide relevant documents from other opioid cases, which are not part of the consolidated cases.

Walgreens, CVS, Walmart, and other pharmacies requested to remove the 2019 motion that included cases outside of the MDL. The companies argued that ruling from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in April 2020 was an overly broad request for discovery. However, in June 2020, the judge refused to withdraw the request.

Walmart provided a PowerPoint presentation to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which included documents covered under the order. The judge stated that Delaware's opioid litigation is related to Walmart's prescription policies, and shareholders are seeking for access to its records.

The judge stated that Walmart provided illogical explanations of the order to tackle the production of the documents and use it to delay or avoid complying with the court orders.

The spokesperson for Walmart said that the company is following the rules of the court and will continue to defend the litigation. However, the recently sanctioned order has only worsened the matters for the retailer in the litigation.

In October 2017, National Prescription Opiate Litigation MDL No. 2804 (In Re: National Prescription Opiate Litigation) was formed overlooked by U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster.

Plaintiffs in JUUL nicotine addiction lawsuits are asking the U.S. District Judge to consolidate the different claims for the first bellwether trial that will begin next year.

The lawsuits allege JUUL of implementing deceptive marketing strategies that targeted teens and prior non-smokers. It eventually resulted in the addiction to nicotine that is present in the e-cigarettes of the company.

Judge Orrick has even created a bellwether process by selecting a group of six personal injury cases. The process will prevent the repetitive response of juries to certain evidence and testimony throughout the hearing.

Plaintiffs sent a letter to Judge Orrick last week asking the court to consolidate six bellwether cases into one combined trial. However, the defendant has asked for separate trials for individual lawsuits. The court might prefer smaller multi-plaintiff trials. The letter even states that consolidation of the cases will prevent expense and delay of repetitive trials that might provide similar evidence and include the same issues.

Plaintiffs highlighted in the letter that most of the cases are identical with similar allegations of nicotine addiction against JUUL. Consolidation of the cases will provide uniformity in the court proceedings considering the common facts and questions.

JUUL pods gained immense popularity among the teens within a shorter span of time due to the aggressive marketing of the company. The vaping pods were introduced in 2015 and soon resulted in a nicotine addiction epidemic throughout the U.S.

Currently, JUUL Labs faces more than 4,500 product liability lawsuits from school districts, municipalities and individuals. All the JUUL lawsuits are centralized before U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick III in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Federal regulators are looking to discontinue the sale of JUUL vaping pods from the market, considering the nicotine addiction among the teens and illicit product marketing.

JUUL tried to convince the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by submitting a 125,000-page application that highlighted the benefits of e-cigarettes stating that vaping pods help smokers quit smoking. The company even mentioned in the application that those benefits surpass the teen vaping epidemic caused because of the JUUL pods.

JUUL’s extensive marketing of vaping pods is linked to an increase in nicotine addiction among teens across the country. The high levels of nicotine in JUUL pods often result in long-term health problems among the users.

Manufacturers of tobacco products such as e-cigarettes, pipe tobacco, cigars, and hookah tobacco that were on the market as of August 8, 2016, are required to submit applications to the FDA before May 12, 2020, as ordered by a U.S. District Court in Maryland in July 2019. Later, the deadline was revised to September 9, 2021, considering the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The application will include the marketing strategies that the manufacturers will implement to prevent underage use of vaping pods.

The final deadline for the FDA to decide the fate of the JUUL pods is September 9. Currently, the company faces more than 4500 vaping lawsuits from school districts, municipalities, and individuals. All the lawsuits allege the company of fueling nicotine addiction among teens, young adults, and prior non-smokers by implementing deceptive marketing strategies through social media and other marketing platforms.

Earlier, the FDA forced JUUL to discontinue most of the vaping pod flavors from the market that resulted in huge losses to the company. The company shut down operations in 14 countries as the sales dropped by about $500 million. The company earlier had a market value of $40 billion, which is now reduced to $5 billion. Experts believe that if the FDA rejects JUUL's application, it will eventually lead to the end of JUUL Labs as a company.

It is reported that JUUL has bought the May/June issue of the American Journal of Health Behavior for $51,000 to get 11 studies published which will highlight the benefits of vaping products. The company has even paid an additional amount of $6,500, so the users can get free access to the studies.

JUUL pods were first introduced in 2015, and within a short period, the products gained popularity among teens and young adults across the United States.

Earlier, a federal jury announced a landmark settlement that orders electronic cigarette giant Juul Labs Inc. to pay $40 million to North Carolina in litigation that accuses the company of fueling teen vaping.
It is first of its kind agreement with a state. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein sued the company by placing allegations that Juul’s unfair and deceptive marketing strategies encouraged the use of vaping products among the youth.

The agreement states that the vaping manufacturer Juul will no longer advertise its products to anyone under 21 in North Carolina. It also states that the company should limit the sales of its products by selling only behind counters at retailers who have ID scanners that will detect the customer's age.

A spokesperson for Juul said that the company is already experiencing a decline in the sale of its products post the discontinuation of advertising and social media promotion. The company is effectively looking forward to combating underage vaping by taking necessary measures.

Juul faces individual lawsuits from several states, and since February 2020, a group of 39 state attorneys general is cooperatively investigating the company’s marketing and products. The company even faces hundreds of personal injury lawsuits, which include claims from customers and families of young people affected because of vaping. All these lawsuits are consolidated before Judge William H. Orrick in a California federal court.

A request to consolidate Philips CPAP machines lawsuits has been raised in the federal court post the FDA's issue to recall the devices considering the growing number of claims.

The lawsuits allege the devices were dangerous and contained defective PE-PUR foam, which resulted in health hazards to the users. It is also observed that the foam degrades over time, resulting in the release of black particles or toxic chemicals directly into the air pathway.

Eventually, Philips recalled around 3.5 million CPAP, BiPAP and ventilator breathing machines from the U.S. market and urged the users to prohibit the use of the devices. The toxic particles released by the foam in the devices are linked to causing severe respiratory problems and other health complications, including cancer.

The first plaintiff who filed the lawsuit against the device maker has requested the federal court to consolidate the similar lawsuits and claims in an MDL for a common outcome and fair hearing.

Another plaintiff who filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia on July 2 alleged that he experienced disrupted respiratory system, cellular damage, and DNA damage, and got diagnosed with lung cancer in June 2021 due to the daily use of the device.

Currently, there are at least ten different lawsuits filed across five different U.S. District Courts nationwide. The experts state that the number of Philips CPAP Machine lawsuits is expected to grow in the coming weeks and months as millions of users have been affected.