The Journal. - Why Some Opioid Victims Are Challenging Purdue’s Settlement

Episode Date: December 5, 2023

The Supreme Court is weighing an $8-billion settlement between opioid victims, Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family. Two claimants explain their views on the deal and WSJ’s Alexander Gladstone reports.  Further Reading: -The Opioid Victims Who Won’t Sign Off on Purdue’s $6 Billion Settlement -Supreme Court Weighs Purdue Pharma’s $6 Billion Opioid Settlement Further Listening: -How a Drug Maker Plans to Cut Off Money for Opioid Victims -Purdue’s $4.5 Billion Opioid Settlement Got Thrown Out. Now What?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2020, Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, reached a settlement with victims of the opioid crisis. The deal was worth $8 billion. And what is your connection to the Purdue Pharma settlement case? Just tell us a little bit about your story. Well, I wish I wasn't part of the Purdue Varma case, but my wife and I lost our son to an OxyContin overdose in 2009. His name was Brian. He was just shy of his 21st birthday. Bill Nelson is one of the roughly 130,000 claimants

eligible for a payout from the deal. But Bill opposes the settlement. I don't necessarily want any money. No amount of money is ever going to make me happy, me or my wife happy. It's not going to bring our son back. What Bill does want is to go to court against the Sacklers, the family that owned and ran Purdue.

But Bill can't do that if the settlement is approved. That's because the agreement includes a provision that protects the Sacklers from future civil lawsuits. With the Sacklers, this is all about money. Our only hope is to hit them where it hurts, and that's to be able to sue them and put them through hell. The Sacklers have previously denied wrongdoing as owners of Purdue. Now, the Justice Department has brought a case

to the Supreme Court on behalf of people like Bill, a case that could sink the whole deal. What would you want to hear from the Supreme Court in this particular case? behalf of people like Bill, a case that could sink the whole deal. What would you want to hear from the Supreme Court in this particular case? Well, very simple. I want the Supreme Court to throw out the settlement. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Tuesday,

December 5th. Coming up on the show, how an opioid settlement worth billions could unravel. Summer is like a cocktail. It has to be mixed just right. Start with a handful of great friends. Now, add your favorite music. And then, finally, add Bacardi rum. And there you have it. The perfect summer mix. Bacardi.

Do what moves you. Live passionately. Drink responsibly. Copyright 2024. Bacardi. It's trade dress and the bat device are trademarks of Bacardi and Company Limited. On Monday, protesters gathered outside the Supreme Court. Inside, the nine justices were faced with a question. Can the Purdue Pharma settlement move forward if some claimants, like Bill Nelson, don't agree with the terms? But the beginning of the story goes back decades. I'll lay it out for you. In the late 1990s, the Sackler family,

through their ownership of Purdue Pharma, which is a company which they own, they began selling OxyContin, which became known as one of the most popular opioid products. And many people would say that it is what kickstarted or kind of launched the opioid epidemic. That's our colleague Alexander Gladstone. In 2007, Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to misbranding OxyContin, misleading users about how addictive the drug is. In the 2010s, there came to be a lot of lawsuits against the Sacklers, brought by a lot of different people, both individuals, like a person who lost a son or a daughter, and also by governments. You know, if you're the state attorney general of a certain state, you can say, well, you've got a lot of my citizens, you know, hooked or had overdoses and, you know, I'm suing on behalf of my state.

I've had overdoses and I'm suing on behalf of my state. There's about 130,000 people who have filed claims against Purdue and the Sacklers saying, you have caused me and my family damage by getting my son or daughter or myself addicted to opioids and causing an overdose or other bad effects of addiction. By 2019, Purdue was facing thousands of lawsuits, and it filed for bankruptcy. Under bankruptcy law, all the lawsuits were frozen and brought into a single negotiation. It took years of complex negotiations, but they finally got to that agreement. And this agreement, by the way, it's supported by nearly all state attorneys general and victims who voted on the plan, 95% voted in favor. And so there's a settlement plan, which is saying the Sackler family will give $6 billion and Purdue itself will give an additional one to two billion dollars to settle all these

lawsuits and all these claims by these people who say that, you know, you've injured me. And then just taking a step back, can we put the settlement in relation to other settlements related to opioids cases? How much money is this? Well, here's the thing that's interesting. Some of the big drugstore chains, CVS and Walgreens, and also big pharmaceutical companies like Johnson & Johnson, they have agreed to settlements that are very, very big. I think it's collectively, if you include Purdue as well, but between all the different pharma companies and drugstore chains,

it's over $50 billion. What makes the Purdue agreement unique is that $750 million would go directly to victims and their families. This settlement would be by far the largest and one of the first times

that victims themselves get direct compensation. Wow. Okay. So it is a big deal to get to this point and presumably to have it move forward. Exactly. It's a very big deal. The money would work out to up to $48,000 per victim. About $5 billion would go to states and local governments to help fund addiction programs. The most controversial part of the deal has to do with the Sackler family. They would contribute $6 billion of their personal wealth to the settlement.

But after that, they would be protected. No one would be able to bring civil lawsuits against the family in the future. And the reason why it's so controversial is there's a component of that settlement which says not only are all the existing lawsuits against the Sacklers resolved by this, but they're immune from future lawsuits that would be brought, future civil lawsuits, I should say. Interesting. So what it would mean is if the Supreme Court sides with Purdue and the settlement, it would mean that the settlement happens and then the Sacklers are then immune to being sued for lawsuits that concern how they handled Purdue and their selling of opioid products through Purdue. Forever. They can't be sued again for that reason. They're immune to it.

Forever. They can't be sued again for that reason. They're immune to it. Bill Nelson, the father who lost his son to an overdose, says that immunity provision isn't fair. What will happen is that the Sacklers get to walk away scot-free from any future civil liability from their role in ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. And I just don't think that's right. I know that we're one of the few families

that are against the settlement. My heart goes out and I sympathize with those that are in favor of the settlement, but I just don't think it's the right thing. And I would hope the Supreme Court would agree. that are in favor of the settlement, but I just don't think it's the right thing, and I would hope the Supreme Court would agree. And what is it that you want to get from the Sacklers? Like, if the DOJ wins its appeal and the settlement falls apart, what does this mean for you? What do you get? I get satisfaction is probably all I'd get.

What I really want is to see Richard Sackler spend the rest of his life in prison. It has nothing to really do with the outcome of the bankruptcy settlement. Bill pushes back against the settlement for another reason, the timeline for the release of the money. Because even if the settlement is approved, payments to individuals would be dispersed over the next decade, and payments to local and state governments would be over 18 years. If the Supreme Court rules the way you want, what if it takes years to, I mean, you've already been in this fight for so long. What if it takes years to reach a new settlement? You know, how do you feel about that? Unfortunately, that's not a what if, it's a definite. It will take years.

And again, that's part of the reason why I feel for the families that are in favor of this settlement. They want to put this behind them. Some of the families need money, as little as it is. But I just think it's the wrong thing. They're doing it for their own reasons. They're absolutely entitled to their opinion, and I respect that, and I just hope they respect ours. After the break, we hear from a claimant who wants to take the Purdue settlement. Your teen requested a ride, but this time, not from you.

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My name is Kara Trainor. I'm 42, and I'm from Kalamazoo, Michigan. Right before her 21st birthday, Kara was prescribed OxyContin after a sports injury. I usually say I used to be one of the originals because I was prescribed OxyContin back in 2002. Kara says she became addicted to opioids, including heroin. In 2010, that's when I became pregnant and gave birth to my little guy, Riley. When he was born, Riley had withdrawal symptoms, and since then, he's had health issues. He has had problems with development. He was in diapers up until he was 12 last year, using a sippy cup until last year. And he does have eye conditions that they can directly link to the neonatal opioid withdrawal. Cara Trainor is one of the claimants,

and she supports the settlement with Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers. trainer is one of the claimants, and she supports the settlement with Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers. So for us to reach that deal, I think it was a miracle. I've said it multiple times to negotiate that. This is the best deal that, you know, that we could possibly get. Kara works two jobs, helping other addicts in recovery in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The money from the settlement could go a long way to helping her and her son. It took us, like, two years to come to this settlement. You know, and victims were actually going to get money directly. It's not, you know, huge, huge, huge money.

But for people that are in the struggle right now, even the small amounts are going to really help people. And so if the deal, the settlement falls apart, it's going to be victim against victim. It's going to be who can race to the courthouse quickly and file. And can one judgment be more than another victim's judgment? And what is that going to look like? Our colleague Alex lays out the divide this way. Some people say, I want the money and I want to be done with this case. Other people say, I don't want the money.

I don't care about the money. I want to pursue my rights in the court of law. The two views cannot really be reconciled. Because if the settlement is approved, that $6 billion from the Sacklers starts to flow and the other $1 to $2 billion from Purdue starts to flow. For all the people who voted in favor, they got what they want. Great, right.

For the people who didn't vote in favor, it'd be like forcing them to accept that outcome. Right, so is it like their rights are being impinged upon by being forced to take this settlement? That is the question. And so the Department of Justice is saying, those people who didn't agree, you can't take their rights away. You can't force them to accept a settlement that they didn't want and that they don't want. On Monday at the Supreme Court, the justices took up the question of whether or not the majority should force the rest to accept the settlement.

Some of the justices, Kavanaugh, he was sort of saying, well, the majority supports it. He sort of indicated he might be reluctant to go against what the majority wants. and to go against what the majority wants. The opioid victims and their families overwhelmingly approve this plan because they think it will ensure prompt payments. But then Gorsuch, who's also a conservative justice, some of his questions, I believe, are focused on due process. He's like, how can you take a person who doesn't want this deal, who rejects it, and force them to take it? Because people have the right to a jury trial.

This would defy what we do in class action contexts. It would raise serious due process concerns and Seventh Amendment concerns, as the government highlighted. You're only entitled to a jury. So it could create an outcome where you have, you know, both liberals and conservatives on one side and then a different group of liberals, conservatives on the other side. What happens to the money if the settlement falls apart, if the Supreme Court rules against it? If the Supreme Court rules against it, the Sacklers would just have all their money sitting in their trusts. And then they would say, okay, go ahead and sue me. See how well it goes. Could this decision set a broader precedent? Like, would it affect, like,

bankruptcies for other companies? Massively. It'll massively set a precedent. Either way they rule, it will be massive in terms of the precedent that it sets. Because if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the settlement, every bankruptcy, you can go in there and you can say, okay, all the directors and executives and owners and people who are supervising the company, we're going to let them off the hook for all that they've done. You know, of course, as part of them giving some sort of financial settlement to all the creditors.

And they can do that. Right. If they're not allowed to, if the Supreme Court rules against this deal, then they can't do that. And that actually has a lot of implications for companies that provide consumer products that might harm people, like medicines or pharmaceuticals or tobacco, all sorts of harms of stuff like that that can be harmful. So it will have sweeping ramifications whichever way they rule.

The Supreme Court is expected to make a decision next spring. Kara Trainor, the claimant who works in addiction recovery services, is ready to move on. But whatever happens, Kara says there's one outcome she won't accept. I just refuse to have the Sackler family take anything else away from me. I won't give them that type of power to divide a community.

Our recovery community and the community of advocates and the grieving parents. We're like a tribe. And they've taken, the Sackler family took so much away from every single one of us. Children, our dreams, our lives, you know, all of this. I do not want a fracture in our family and in our community. That's all for today, Tuesday, December 5th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal.

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