WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday wrestled with a nationwide settlement with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma that would protect members of the Sackler family, which owns the company, from civil lawsuits over the cost of opioids.
The judges seemed reluctant to break up an exhaustively negotiated agreement, but also wary of rewarding the Sacklers in any way.
The agreement reached with state and local governments and victims would provide billions of dollars to combat the opioid epidemic.
The Sacklers would contribute up to $6 billion and give up ownership of the company, but would keep billions more.
The company would emerge from bankruptcy as a different entity and its profits would be used for treatment and prevention.
The high court put the deal on hold over the summer, in response to objections from the Biden administration.
Justice Elena Kagan seemed to summarize the questions that bothered some of the justices.
“It seems like the federal government is standing in the way of the huge, huge, huge majority of plaintiffs,” Kagan said.
But then he also said that in bankruptcies, protection from lawsuits comes at a price.
“You get forgiveness when you put all your assets on the table,” he said. “The Sacklers didn’t come close to doing that.”
The arguments lasted nearly two hours in a packed courtroom, with the doors draped in black in memory of retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who died Friday.
Chief Justice John Roberts offered a remembrance of the first woman to serve on the court. “She changed the world,” Roberts said.
Jen Trejo holds a photo of her son Christopher as she is comforted outside the Supreme Court on Monday, Dec. 4, 2023, in Washington. AP
Outside the courthouse, a small but vocal group of protesters opposed the Purdue Pharma deal.
“Shame on Sackler,” one banner read. “There is no Sackler immunity in any $$,” said another.
The question for judges is whether the legal shield that bankruptcy provides can be extended to people like the Sacklers, who have not filed for bankruptcy.
Lower courts have issued conflicting decisions on that issue, which also has implications for other major products liability lawsuits resolved through the bankruptcy system.
The United States Bankruptcy Trustee, a branch of the Justice Department, maintains that bankruptcy law does not protect the Sackler family from being sued. During the Trump administration, the government supported the agreement.
Justice Department attorney Curtis Gannon told the court Monday that negotiations could resume, and perhaps lead to a better deal, if the court halted the current deal.
Proponents of the plan said third-party disclosures are sometimes necessary to forge a deal, and federal law imposes no prohibition against them.
“Forget about a better deal,” attorney Pratik Shah, who represents victims and other bankruptcy creditors, told the judges. “There is no other deal.”
Lawyers for more than 60,000 victims who support the settlement called it “a watershed moment in the opioid crisis,” while acknowledging that “no amount of money could fully compensate” victims for the harm caused by misleading drug advertising. OxyContin, a powerful prescription pain reliever. .
An attorney for a victim who opposes the settlement calls the provision dealing with the Sacklers “special protection for billionaires.”
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson seemed more inclined toward opponents, saying the Sacklers’ insistence on a shield against all lawsuits is “causing this problem.”
Instead, Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared to vote in favor of allowing the deal to go forward. He said the government was trying to prevent payments to victims and their families, as well as money for prevention programs “in exchange for this somewhat theoretical idea that they will be able to recover money from the Sacklers themselves in the future.”
Signs in the shape of tombstones, with information about people who died from using OxyContin, line a security fence in front of the Supreme Court on Monday, Dec. 4, 2023, in Washington. AP
OxyContin first hit the market in 1996, and its aggressive marketing by Purdue Pharma is often cited as a catalyst for the nationwide opioid epidemic, persuading doctors to prescribe painkillers without regard to the dangers of The addiction.
The drug and the Stamford, Connecticut-based company became synonymous with the crisis, even though most of the pills being prescribed and used were generic medications.
Opioid-related overdose deaths have continued to rise, reaching 80,000 in recent years. Most of them come from fentanyl and other synthetic drugs.
The Purdue Pharma settlement would be among the largest reached by pharmaceutical companies, wholesalers and pharmacies to resolve epidemic-related lawsuits brought by Native American state, local and tribal governments and others.
Those deals have totaled more than $50 billion.
But the Purdue Pharma deal would be one of only two so far that includes direct payments to victims from a $750 million pool.
Payments are expected to range between $3,500 and $48,000.
Members of the Sackler family are no longer on the company’s board of directors and have not been paid since before Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy.
However, in the previous decade, they were paid more than $10 billion, about half of which, family members said, went to paying taxes.
A decision is expected in the Harrington v. Purdue Pharma, 22-859, due early summer.
Categories: Trending
Source: vtt.edu.vn