By Steve Taylor
For the Leader
Jefferson County has joined a lawsuit against 49 makers and distributors of a class of medications known as opioids.
The lawsuit, filed Aug. 1 in St. Louis County Circuit Court, alleges that the drug manufacturers and distributors have known for years “that opioids were addictive and subject to abuse, particularly when used long-term for chronic non-cancer pain and should not be used except as a last resort.”
County Executive Ken Waller said he agreed to involve the county in the suit, which was filed by a Clayton law firm and
names nine other counties and the city of Joplin as plaintiffs.
The 274-page suit also alleges that the targeted companies have known for years “that with prolonged use, the effectiveness of opioids wanes, requiring increases in doses and markedly increasing the risk of significant side effects and addiction.”
That widespread addiction, the suit states, leads to a number of societal ills.
“The misbranding and overabundance of opioids has caused death, abuse, addiction, crime and social and familial destruction,” the suit said. “Plaintiffs have paid for and will continue to pay the costs, including but not limited to, of: law enforcement, public safety, incarceration, medical care, costs of treatment, counseling and withdrawal, family protective services and autopsies. These public expenditures could have been avoided.”
According to the lawsuit, the 10 counties and Joplin are seeking to recover “public costs expended fighting this opioid epidemic and … future costs in continuing attempts to finance community efforts in stopping the problem and repairing what harm has been done.”
Waller said he first heard of the suit about six months ago from Derrick Good, an attorney who practices in Hillsboro.
“He asked me to meet with Jack Garvey (of the Carey, Danis and Lowe law firm in Clayton), which was considering filing a lawsuit about opioids,” he said. “I thought about it for a little bit and decided that the county should be part of it.”
Waller said the county will not have to pay any money to participate in the suit.
“I’ve been told that on more than one occasion.” he said.
Garvey said his law firm is bankrolling the costs of litigation.
“We’re estimating that this will cost between $2 million and $4 million,” he said. “Jefferson County and the other plaintiffs will not have to pay anything. The law firm is financing the suit. If it’s not successful, the firm will absorb the cost. If it is successful, it will be paid from the verdict or the settlement.”
Garvey said the idea for the suit originated more than a decade ago, when one of the defendants, Purdue Pharma LP, which makes the opioid OxyContin, settled federal criminal and civil charges alleging marketing misconduct and agreed to pay $635 million.
Since then, Garvey noted, other suits have been filed in state courts, including West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and New Hampshire.
Garvey said he reached out to Good when his firm began considering filing the suit.
“I was a judge in St. Louis and he tried a case in front of me and I was pretty impressed with him,” Garvey said. “We have tried to enlist local counsel. They know what’s going on in their counties.”
He said Good, who works for the Thurman Law Firm in Hillsboro, also will receive payment for his involvement only if the defendants pay damages.
Waller said he made the sole decision for the county to be involved in the suit.
“I did not consult with the County Council on this,” he said. “The charter is clear that the county executive directs the county’s involvement in lawsuits. This will not involve any appropriations from the county budget, which is a function that the council does play a part in.”
He said the County Council’s reluctance in early 2017 to allow the county to subscribe to a regional prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) run by the St. Louis County Department of Public Health led to his unilateral action.
“After all the problems we had getting the council to consider a PDMP, I decided it was best to go this route. I’m not trying to do anything in secret. This was something that needed to be done.”
After the County Council voted against two separate ordinances on the PDMP, the Jefferson County Health Department, which is an independent agency, voted to join the regional registry.
“As I said at that time, the PDMP would only be a small part of the solution, and this lawsuit is the same thing – it’s only a small piece of the puzzle to fighting the opioid problem. The county has a huge problem with opioids, and it’s getting worse,” Waller said.
He said since 2013, there have been almost 350 deaths in Jefferson County related to opioids.
“We’re second in the state over that time period,” he said. “This is a problem we need to start figuring out how to solve.”
Waller said he hopes that the lawsuit leads to an open dialogue between the drug manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies, doctors and public health professionals on the dangers of opioids and possible solutions.
“The primary goal is not getting a windfall of money from this suit,” he said. “If any money comes our way, I’d like to see it go to law enforcement, to the first responders, to the hospitals – the people who deal firsthand with opioid issues. The primary goal of this suit in my mind is getting the parties to the table to work out solutions.”
Besides Jefferson County and Joplin, other jurisdictions involved in the suit are the counties of Washington, Cape Girardeau, Christian, Crawford, Iron, Greene, Taney, Stone and Jasper.
Among the 49 firms being sued are Purdue Pharma, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Teva Pharmaceutical, Johnson and Johnson, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, McKesson Corp., Express Scripts, Caremark, United Healthcare of the Midwest, OptumRX, Walgreens and CVS. Gurpreet Padea, a doctor in St. Louis characterized in the suit as running a “pill mill” that prescribed opioids at “a high rate,” also was named as a defendant.
No trial date has been set in the case.