Beacon Hill leaders are pledging to push for money from OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that nullified a $6 billion settlement with the Sackler family over their alleged role in fueling a nationwide opioid crisis.
On Thursday, the high court rejected a controversial settlement that would have sent hundreds of millions of dollars to Massachusetts, New Hampshire and other states for treatment programs and victims of the opioid epidemic, but that also shielded the Sacklers from any future lawsuits.
Gov. Maura Healey, who in 2018 as attorney general filed the first lawsuit against Purdue and the Sacklers, said she will continue to push for relief for the families “who have been hurt in this crisis and for the communities that desperately need these resources for prevention, treatment and recovery.”
“Today’s decision will never erase the role that Purdue and the Sacklers had in creating the opioid crisis, destroying the lives of American families, and exploiting a broken legal system to protect their billions,” Healey said in a statement.
Attorney General Andrea Campbell vowed that the Sacklers “must and will be held responsible, and, in the wake of this decision, we will use every power available to us to make sure that occurs.”
“It is no secret that members of the Sackler family, through their control of Purdue, fueled the opioid crisis, devastating countless lives in the pursuit of profit,” she said.
The deal rejected by the high court was to be financed largely by the company being converted into a public benefits corporation, with profits used to fight the opioid crisis. The Sacklers were supposed to kick in up to $6 billion, but would be shielded from any future civil liability claims.
In a statement, the Sackler family suggested they will likely pursue negotiations to settle claims by state attorneys general and other parties to the now-defunct deal.
“The unfortunate reality is that the alternative is costly and chaotic legal proceedings in courtrooms across the country,” they said in a statement. “While we are confident that we would prevail in any future litigation given the profound misrepresentations about our families and the opioid crisis, we continue to believe that a swift negotiated agreement to provide billions of dollars for people and communities in need is the best way forward.”
The high court’s 5-4 rejection of the agreement focused on the limitations of the U.S. bankruptcy system.
“The Sacklers seek greater relief than a bankruptcy discharge normally affords, for they hope to extinguish even claims for wrongful death and fraud, and they seek to do so without putting anything close to all their assets on the table,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority.
“Describe the relief the Sacklers seek how you will, nothing in the bankruptcy code contemplates it,” he added.
But in a minority opinion, Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined with Chief Justice John Roberts in declaring that the court’s decision will have a “devastating” impact on thousands of victims of the nation’s opioid crisis.
“As a result, opioid victims are now deprived of the substantial monetary recovery that they long fought for and finally secured after years of litigation,” Kavanaugh wrote.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Cambridge, said the Supreme Court’s ruling closed a bankruptcy “loophole” that would have allowed the Sacklers to avoid more financial liability, but said “that doesn’t make things right for the millions of people who have lost loved ones to opioid overdoses.”
“This is a first step toward accountability for the Sackler family,” she said. “It’s time for the Sacklers to pay up.”
Healey’s 2018 lawsuit, which was signed onto by dozens of other states, alleged the Sacklers reaped billions of dollars as their company misled prescribers and patients in order to boost sales of their addictive medications.
Massachusetts still is grappling with a deadly wave of addiction that has claimed thousands of lives from overdoses, despite a declining number of deaths.
There were 2,125 opioid-related deaths in 2023, a 10% decline over the previous year, according to the state Department of Public Health.
Experts say many of those addictions started with pain pills, usually prescribed by a doctor.
Massachusetts was slated to get about $110 million from the deal with Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family, which would have added to hundreds of millions of dollars from other multistate settlements with opioid makers and distributors. The money is devoted for drug treatment and prevention efforts.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.
