SEATTLE (Legal Newsline) - A trial in Washington State in which three of the country’s biggest distributors of opioid drugs stand accused of causing an overdose epidemic had been postponed until Jan. 24, but a representative of the Attorney General's office called the pause "routine."
"The trial was already scheduled to be in recess the week of Jan. 17," Brionna Aho, communication director for State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, told Legal Newsline in an email. "The court informed us last week it would be in recess this week as well."
The trial is being streamed live courtesy of Courtroom View Network.
The trial which began on Nov. 15 in the King County Superior Court also took a break for the Christmas holiday and is expected to last through February.
The state, led by Ferguson, is suing defendants McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen Corp., accusing them of causing an overdose crisis in Washington State that has claimed numerous lives by recklessly promoting and distributing drugs to pharmacies and doctor’s offices for profits.
Judge Michael Scott is hearing the case in a bench trial without a jury.
Attorneys for the state have contended the epidemic took a sharp rise after 2007 particularly with the emergence of internet (not brick and mortar) pharmacies, clinics and the over-prescribing of pain pills by doctors in what were called “pill mills.”
Defense lawyers argued the companies had put anti-drug-diversion programs into place and had been unfairly targeted as scapegoats by the State of Washington. They contended the state is asking for an unreasonable amount of damages to institute anti-drug programs. The state is seeking damages of $32.8 billion initially to fund treatment and related programs, but with penalties and surrendered profits the total could reach $95 billion.
Three of the most commonly shipped opioid drugs include OxyContin, Hydrocodone and methadone.
According to the Washington State Department of Health, 1,200 people died of opioid overdose in the state in 2020.
A major witness in the case appearing for the state in November was Joe Rannazzisi, former head of the Office of Diversion Control for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Rannazzisi, responsible for making sure doctors and pharmacies observed regulations under the federal Controlled Substances Act, described for the courtroom a prescription drug industry through 2015 as being “out of control.”
Rannazzisi ran the DEA’s Diversion Control Division until shortly before he retired in 2015 and oversaw a big increase in the quotas that set how many opioid pills manufacturers could sell. He came to national fame in 2018 after appearing on “60 Minutes” criticizing federal opioid policy as too lax. He has since become a $500-an-hour expert for private lawyers representing state and local governments suing the opioid industry.
As with other witnesses appearing for the state, defense attorneys sought to portray Rannazzisi as a high-paid hireling for private lawyers.
Another notable state witness, Ruth Carter, was a 30-year veteran of the DEA who served as diversion program manager up until her retirement in June 2019.
Carter told the court the three companies continued to ship highly addictive opioids with insufficient anti-diversion programs; lacking enough checkers to investigate red-flagged suspect orders, orders that were higher in volume than normal or more frequent orders. Carter said checkers were faced with numerous red-flag orders (as many as 150 per day) they had neither the time nor resources to adequately check. The companies continued shipping suspicious orders anyway she added.
Carter said it was the responsibility of company officials to know their (drug) customers and their buying habits, not the DEA, and that simply warning the agency about a suspicious order after shipping it to a customer did not satisfy DEA requirements.
She testified the DEA could and did provide the companies with broad but not specific guidelines, as each business is different and would implement anti-diversion programs in their own ways.
Under cross examination, Paul Schmidt, the defense lawyer for McKesson with the Covington law firm, called Carter an “expert witness” for plaintiffs pursuing litigation against drug companies. Carter, who had appeared in seven trials, told Schmidt she had been paid $1.9 million in the cases as a witness. Her yearly DEA salary was in the range of $200,000.
Schmidt displayed documents stating that patients were drug-screened by doctors before receiving medications, new patients were checked for their IDs and that McKesson had reduced threshold ordering limits requested by customers; in one case down from 29,000 units to 25,000, and from 16,500 to 13,000 in another.
The trial follows two earlier trials in which courts decided in favor of the drug companies. In November, the Oklahoma Supreme Court overturned a $465 million lower court judgment against Johnson & Johnson. In another case in Orange County, California, a judge decided in favor of defendants again including Johnson & Johnson, that the companies had not used deceptive business practices to increase unnecessary opioid prescriptions.