Drug Maker Warns That OxyContin Suit Could Be ‘Crippling’
From the article:
No one rises as Circuit Judge Steven Combs enters his courtroom in Pikeville, Kentucky.
Combs wears a white shirt and yellow tie, no robe. Lawyers approach the bench as their cases are called, shake the judge’s hand and exchange small talk before getting to business. Today’s docket includes a woman convicted of public intoxication, an accused trafficker of painkillers, and a procedural matter involving Purdue Pharma LP, a multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical company based in Stamford, Connecticut, that’s effectively accused of laying waste to this Appalachian coal town.
In this remote county courthouse in southeast Kentucky, the company faces a potential legal reckoning that its own chief financial officer called “crippling.” Purdue has already lost initial procedural decisions that may force it to go to trial with its “arms tied behind its back,” the company said in pretrial arguments.
The lawsuit, once dismissed as a quixotic mission, has become Purdue’s legal nightmare — one that the company says could result in a catastrophic $1 billion judgment against it, based on the state’s allegations as well as the potential for punitive damages and pre- and post-judgment interest. With other lawsuits filed this year in Illinois and California against Purdue and other opioid makers, the Kentucky case could trigger more litigation along the lines of the suits that cost Big Tobacco billions in the 1990s.
Normally in our legal system… the “deep pockets” hires the best attorneys and are able to walk away… Purdue Pharma’s legal team may have met their match in this little back water Eastern Kentucky town..
Filed under: General Problems
SOMETIMES our legal system actually works. Too bad such a powerful agency such as the DEA has no regard for our civil rights. If it did then issues such as the case of State of Oregon vs US DEA would never get this far.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF OREGON
PORTLAND DIVISION
OREGON PRESCRIPTION DRUG
MONITORING PROGRAM, an agency
of the STATE OF OREGON,
Plaintiff,
v.
UNITED STATES DRUG
ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION,
an agency of the UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,
Defendant.
JOHN DOE 1, et al.,
Plaintiffs-Intervenors,
v.
UNITED STATES DRUG
ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION,
an agency of the UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE.
Defendant in Intervention.
HAGGERTY, District Judge:
Case No. 3:12-cv-02023-HA
JUDGMENT
Based on the Opinion and Order [60) entered on Februaty 11, 2014, Judgment is hereby
entered in favor of plaintiffs-intervenors. The United States Drug Enforcement Administration’s
1 -JUDGMENT
requests for personally identifiable prescription records from the Oregon Prescription Drug
Monitoring Program without first obtaining and producing a warrant violates the Fourth
Amendment of the United States Constitution. Accordingly, the United States Drug
Enforcement Administration is hereby permanently enjoined from obtaining prescription records
from the Oregon Prescription Drug Monitoring Program without first securing a wanant based
upon probable cause.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED this J4_day of March, 2014.
2 -JUDGMENT
~ Ancer L.
L~~O)- Haggerty r (S
United States District Judge
source: http://www.aclu-or.org/sites/default/files/ORDMP_Judgment_031214.pdf
*With Halloween coming up I thought you guys might be up for some scary stories, only this ‘story’ is true and more frightening than most any fiction.
For background on the above case check out this link: [16 pages] you will find well worth the time invested. Very illuminating. Makes one want to see how the PDMP in their state operate and who can access it’s information.
http://www.aclu-or.org/sites/default/files/oregon_PDMP_opinion_021114.pdf
This is exactly the place where local pain patients need to #GivePainAVoice.
If the court was made aware, that local people in pain, will be in worse pain without the drugs, it will put the entire matter in perspective.
If they can’t speak up, this won’t happen.
Perhaps my County Public Health Officer will have his stated wish and the goal of the policy set in action by him (now state policy): turn pain patients with legitmate prescriptions to street drug use, specifically heroin because “we know how to treat heroin addiction.” Good grief. So little comprehension of the actual problems facing chronic pain people!
Of course its the ‘Good Ol Boy Network’ there, hope they take good notes and can get dismissed on appeal if they lose. These lawsuits disgust me because its all over the package information which should throw out every single one of these.