The J&J Opioid Lawsuit Could Let the Real Culprits Off the Hook
The case against the company is weak, and it has deep pockets. A successful appeal could set a precedent in thousands of other cases.
Thousands of opioid lawsuits may end up being no more effective.
Photographer: Epics/Hulton ArchiveIn 1977, after an electrical fire destroyed the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky, killing 165 people, a plaintiffs’ lawyer named Stanley Chesley came up with a novel way to recover money for the families of the victims. The fire made it impossible to know which company had made the aluminum wiring for the building, so Chesley sued every wiring company in the country, on the grounds that they all bore some blame because aluminum wiring was inherently dangerous. It worked: the plaintiffs wound up with about $50 million, most of which came, by definition, from companies that had nothing to do with the fire.
Monday’s verdict against Johnson & Johnson – an Oklahoma state court judge ordered the company to pay $572 million for its role in the state’s opioid crisis – bears more than a passing resemblance to that old Kentucky case. States, cities and counties are suing any company that ever had anything to do with opioids no matter how marginal their role was in creating the opioid crisis. There are, at present, some 2,000 suits pending.