Federal Jury Finds Pharmacies Contributed to Opioid Epidemic and Death Toll in Lake and Trumbull

Federal Jury Finds Pharmacies Contributed to Opioid Epidemic and Death Toll in Lake and Trumbull Counties


A federal jury in Northeast Ohio today said CVS, Walgreens and Walmart were partially to blame for the avalanche of opioids that flooded communities and did too little to abate the problem.

The verdict came in a lawsuit filed by Lake and Trumbull counties against the pharmacy giants and the trial was the first one for the companies that filled prescriptions for addictive pain pills at the center of the national opioid crisis. Counties and cities with pending litigation against opioid dispensers, distributors and manufacturers will surely be pleased with the result of the test case.

Judge Dan Polster will now decide how much financial obligation the three companies owe to remedy what they created. Reuters reported last week that lawyers for the plaintiffs have said the number should be $1 billion per county.

In finding the companies created a public nuisance with their lax practices, the jury gave credence to a legal argument that some judges in California and Oklahoma have recently rejected.

Read more: https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2021/11/23/federal-jury-finds-pharmacies-contributed-to-opioid-epidemic-and-death-toll-in-lake-and-trumbull-counties