Pulaski County has filed a lawsuit seeking retribution against nationwide opioid manufacturers and the crisis it says the companies caused.
The county alleges America’s largest pharmaceutical companies, through deceitful marketing and willful neglect, have raised local public safety costs and put dangerous amounts of deadly drugs in the hands of hundreds of county residents.
The suit, filed Monday in the Western District of Virginia federal court in Roanoke, aims to hold opioid manufacturers financially responsible for what the county alleges to be a public health crisis spurred by over prescription of the medicines and also under representation of the dangers of dependency and the addictive nature of the companies’ products.
The Roanoke Times first reported the county’s intention to sue Big Pharma in May.
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Nearly a dozen companies, including AmerisourceBergen Drug Corporation, Cardinal Health and Purdue Pharma are listed as defendants in the suit filed Monday.
The case, which is the latest in a slew of local government lawsuits across the country against the companies, is likely to be consolidated in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.
Should the Pulaski case go to trial, the proceedings would be remanded back to federal court in Roanoke.
State Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell County, who is listed as one of the attorneys representing Pulaski County, said the human toll of the opioid crisis in Southwest Virginia is not difficult to quantify.
“We’ve lost a generation or two and their healthy participation in our society,” Chafin said. “The county has incurred increases in law enforcement and incarcerations costs. This is the locality’s burden.”
The complaint alleges the epidemic is particularly devastating in Pulaski, where the prescribing rate was 134.1 per 100 people in 2016. Eight county residents died of an opioid overdose that year.
Last year, Pulaski County had 42 emergency room visits for unintentional overdose by opioid, unspecified substance and heroin at a rate of 122.8 per 100,000 people, according to the suit.
Pulaski County Sheriff Mike Worrell estimated earlier this year that about 75 percent of the calls his deputies are dispatched to involve drugs — and most often opioids.
The suit filed Monday lists eight counts against the drug makers and distributors, including racketeering, fraud, negligence, and public nuisance.
“This is an indication of unfettered greed,” Chafin said. “They’ve just been making so much money for so long that they’ve built their business model around it. The money has just continued to flow.”
John Parker is a senior vice president of the Healthcare Distribution Alliance — a national trade association representing distributors.
“The idea that distributors are responsible for the number of opioid prescriptions written defies common sense and lacks understanding of how the pharmaceutical supply chain actually works and is regulated,” Parker said. “Those bringing lawsuits would be better served addressing the root causes, rather than trying to redirect blame through litigation.”
Pulaski is the sixth of several Southwest Virginia counties that have filed similar “mass action” lawsuits against Big Pharma including Russell, Bland, Smyth, Carroll and Grayson.
By entering the contract for legal representation, Pulaski County agreed to pay a 25 percent retainer, but only if the lawsuit is able to recover damages from the drug companies. The county Board of Supervisors voted to join the contract in May.
The county’s lawyers, who demand a jury trial if the companies do not settle, hope to have a venue set by the end of the summer.
“These are strong cases, each one of them individually,” said Kimberly Haugh, an attorney in Abingdon working on the county’s legal team. “I don’t think anyone truly knows the extent of all the damages this [crisis] has caused. It’s astonishing.”
