Pittsburgh, Allegheny County move toward hiring law firm to take on opioid manufacturers,
Motley Rice leads federal drug suits
Allegheny County and the city of Pittsburgh plan to sign on with one of the law firms at the center of massive litigation against companies that made or distributed opioids, officials announced Tuesday.
County Executive Rich Fitzgerald is taking executive action to enter into a contract with the national plaintiffs’ firm Motley Rice, whose co-founder, Joe Rice, is among the lead counsel guiding hundreds of opioidrelated lawsuits in federal court in Cleveland. Mayor Bill Peduto plans to send to city council legislation to do the same.
Motley Rice would then investigate the harm done to the city and county by the opioid epidemic, and, presumably, sue for damages.
The county lost an estimated 700 people to overdoses last year, and the vast majority involved the synthetic opioid fentanyl, heroin or prescription painkillers, often in combination. City public safety workers have been overwhelmed by overdoses, and county court dockets, human services caseloads and jail pods are dominated by narcotics-related cases. Many experts say that have made billions off the increase in addictions painkillers need to start paying started with the prescribing governments that are on of more opioids. the front lines addressing the
“Just like addiction is havocthey have created.” multi-faceted, we want to Motley Rice, based in look at all options available Mount Pleasant, S.C., was to us to best serve our involved in the $246 billion county residents,” Mr. Fitzgerald settlement reached in the said in a press release. 1990s with the tobacco “Determiningfirms. Now the firm and whether there are legal avenues others are alleging that the is one more tool that pharmaceutical industry we can perhaps put to use to deceptively marketed address this pervasive issue highly addictive prescription in our community.” painkillers, setting the
“This epidemic is not only stage for a ballooning addiction tearing apart families across problem. Hundreds of Pittsburgh but greatly tapping such cases, involving the resources of first-responders around 50 different defendants, in our medic, fire are being handled by and police bureaus,” Mr. U.S. District Judge Dan Peduto said in the release. Aaron Polster, of the Northern “Pharmaceutical companies District of Ohio.
The firm’s clients in curb excessive painkiller cases against the opioid prescribing. firms include Chicago, Both the city and county California’s Santa Clara conducted separate requests County, and the states of for proposals from law firms, Alaska, K e n t u c k yand, selected Motley Rice. Montana, South Carolina Both have said that no taxpayer and New Hampshire. money will go into the
The companies that made litigation; the firm would be or distributed opioids have paidout of any settlement. denied wrongdoing, and some have emphasized that they have taken actions to