MONTGOMERY, Ala. (Legal Newsline) - The Alabama Supreme Court halted a trial judge’s plan to split trials against opioid manufacturers and distributors into two parts, ruling it would be a waste of judicial resources because jurors would have to hear much of the same evidence twice.
The decision represents a minor victory for defendants including Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Labs, Walmart and Walgreens, although they still face trial in rural Conecuh County on claims by regional hospital systems that they caused a “public nuisance” of opioid addiction that inflated the cost of uncompensated patient care.
The defendants sought extraordinary mandamus relief from the state’s highest court after Conecuh County Circuit Court Judge Jack Weaver ordered separate trials to determine liability and “special damage.” Alabama law restricts public-nuisance claims to the government unless plaintiffs can prove they suffered special damage different from that suffered by the general public.
The defendants argued the plaintiffs have to prove special damage for them to be liable at all, so a second trial to determine the amount of that damage would be largely duplicative. In a Nov. 19 order written by Justice William B. Sellers, the state’s highest court agreed.
“The evidence needed to prove special damage that will establish `liability’ in the first trial would be the same evidence required in the second trial, resulting in a duplication of effort and the squandering of judicial resources,” the court concluded.
The defendants also argued the question of special damage would determine whether the plaintiffs had standing to sue, but the Alabama Supreme Court disagreed on that point. Standing is important in cases where plaintiffs are suing the government, the court observed, but doesn’t matter in private litigation as long as the plaintiffs have a legally plausible claim.
Chief Justice Tom Parker and Justice Brady Mendheim dissented from the grant of mandamus, without written explanations.
The defendants earlier tried to move the case from Conecuh County, population 11,000, arguing neither they nor the plaintiffs had much connection to the venue. The Alabama Supreme Court rejected that plea in December 2020.