June 01, 2021
A longtime partner of renowned trial lawyer Paul J. Hanly Jr., who died last month, took over Tuesday as a lead plaintiffs attorney in multidistrict opioid litigation and expressed optimism about progress with trials and settlement talks.
May 28, 2021
With the coronavirus crisis cooling down, a pressure cooker of opioid litigation is heating up with long-awaited trials across the country. Here, Law360 maps out the hottest cases and spotlights must-know details in trials that are underway or imminent.
May 27, 2021
New multidistrict litigation probably won't streamline dozens of cases accusing McKinsey & Co. of helping drugmakers aggressively market prescription opioids, but squeezing the cases into a long-running opioid MDL might be unfair, judges said Thursday.
May 21, 2021
Major pharmaceutical companies embroiled in a multibillion-dollar opioid trial are pinning blame for rampant abuse of prescription narcotics on fellow drugmaker Purdue Pharma, gambling that they can impugn Purdue's marketing of OxyContin without incriminating their own promotion of painkillers.
May 07, 2021
Major pharmacy chains asked an Oklahoma federal judge Friday to let them appeal a key ruling that several drug distributors have already targeted in the Cherokee Nation's bellwether opioid suit, as well as other questions about the pharmacies' duties under the Controlled Substances Act.
May 04, 2021
West Virginia communities moved forcefully Tuesday to show that prescription opioids have been a "gateway" leading Americans on deadly paths to heroin and illicit fentanyl, escalating a crucial and controversial debate in multidistrict opioid litigation's leadoff trial.
May 03, 2021
The first opioid-crisis trial in federal court started Monday, with West Virginia communities saying vast sales of narcotic painkillers are an obvious explanation for vast numbers of deaths, and drug companies describing themselves as scapegoats for the failures and crimes of others.
April 29, 2021
Drug distributors have asked an Oklahoma federal judge to let them appeal a ruling in the Cherokee Nation's bellwether suit that found the companies shouldn't have shipped "suspicious orders" of opioids, arguing that the Controlled Substances Act and related regulations don't impose a duty not to fill those orders.
April 29, 2021
After years of sparring in multidistrict litigation over the opioid crisis, Appalachian communities and deep-pocketed drug corporations will face off Monday in the MDL's first bellwether trial. Here, Law360 looks at the lead lawyers, pivotal disputes and bleak accounts of American towns falling apart.
April 26, 2021
A West Virginia federal judge on Monday rejected a bid by drug distributors to end a bellwether suit in the national opioid multidistrict litigation, saying the court isn't prepared to find that municipalities can't seek funding as abatement for a public nuisance claim.