Counties urged to join opioid lawsuit

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Iowa counties are being asked to join a lawsuit against pharmaceutical firms to combat what is being called a growing opioid epidemic in the state and the nation.

The Iowa State Association of Counties sent information from a group of Wisconsin and Illinois law firms that is planning to file state and national lawsuits against about half a dozen pharmaceutical companies and their various divisions and offshoots.

The suit would be on a contingency basis, with the law firms covering the costs in return for a portion of any judgment or settlement received.

Floyd County supervisors briefly discussed the proposal at a planning session Dec. 11, but did not put it on a future agenda to take action on the request.

Mitchell County supervisors unanimously approved supporting the lawsuit at their meeting Dec. 5.

According to William Peterson, executive director of the Iowa State Association of Counties, the group’s board of directors passed a resolution in November asking member counties to “immediately support litigation” proposed by the three law firms Crueger Dickinson LLC, Simmons Hanly Conroy LLC, and von Briesen & Roper SC.

“The board believes it is important for counties in Iowa to join counties in other states to form a unified front on this litigation,” Peterson wrote in a letter to counties.

Floyd County Supervisor Linda Tjaden said she understood the problem and the desire to take some sort of action, but she was concerned about the time and resources that might be required of the county.

“They said there’s no cost to doing this,” Tjaden said, “except on the back end they’re going to require time and resources of somebody to go back and verify that there were so many problems that had any tie to the opioids.

“I just don’t know how easy it’s going to be,” she said.

Peterson, in his letter to counties, said there would be no out-of-pocket expenditure for counties to join the effort, but “there is an understanding that counties will likely devote some staff time in assisting the firms with damages calculations and data collection.”

“The amount of time is not exactly clear yet,” Peterson wrote, “but it should not be overly burdensome.”

At the Mitchell County meeting Dec. 5, County Attorney Mark Walk reviewed the proposal with supervisors and all three supervisors voted to approve signing a contract with the law firms to proceed as part of the legal action.

The attorneys’ contingency fee for any settlement or damages won through the lawsuit is 25 percent of the gross amount, plus reimbursement for all costs and disbursements made by the firms.

The contract to be part of the lawsuit noted that any settlement or recovery amount might be less than the total contingency fees and expenses due to the law firms, but in that case the counties would not have to pay the difference.

The firms being sued are listed as Purdue Pharma L.P., Purdue Pharma Inc., The Purdue Frederick Co. Inc., Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc., Cephalon Inc.,

Johnson & Johnson, Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., OrthoMcNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., Endo Health Solutions Inc. and Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Floyd County Supervisor Doug Kamm said at the Dec. 11 meeting that the last he had heard about seven counties had returned the contract to support the lawsuit.

An information packet from the law firms says that the drug manufacturers “flooded the market with highly addictive drugs, claiming they were safe and efficacious for long-term use, manufactured studies to support these false claims and knowingly misrepresented the addictive nature of these drugs.”

“As a result of these misrepresentations, millions of Americans’ lives have been impacted or destroyed,” the packet says,

One study cited by the law firms says that the opioid epidemic has cost the United States $78.4 billion — $42 billion in lost productivity, $26.1 billion in health insurance costs, $7.6 billion in criminal justice costs and $2.8 billion in substance abuse treatment costs.

From 1999 to 2013 the number of opioids dispensed in the U.S. nearly quadrupled, the packet says.

The costs that could be reimbursed to counties through a settlement or recovery of damages in court include:

• County-funded health care costs for employees and dependents related to opioid addiction, substance abuse treatment, hospitalIzations, etc.

• County-funded programs for residents for prevention treatment, health visits, substance abuse programs, etc.

• Criminal justice and law enforcement costs associated with opioids.

• Loss of county employee productivIty related to opioid abuse and addiction.

• General societal mayhem and opioid-related death costs.

“Any county that does not get involved risks receiving no recovery,” the material from the law firms says.