Athens-Clarke, Oconee suing opioid companies

Athens-Clarke and Oconee counties have joined a growing number of other governments and hospital authorities across the country in a multi-state federal lawsuit targeting makers and distributors of opioid drugs.

The Athens law firm Blasingame, Burch, Garrard & Ashley filed a complaint in the United States District Court’s Middle District of Georgia Wednesday, and followed up Thursday with a similar complaint on behalf of Oconee County, said James Matthews, a Blasingame Burch partner.

The law firm earlier filed lawsuits against major opioid manufacturers and distributors on behalf of rural Candler County and the Candler County Hospital Authority.

Matthews said he expects the firm to file 25 or more complaints against the opioid manufacturers and distributors for other Georgia governments and agencies.

The more than 20 named defendants in the 176-page complaint Athens-Clarke County filed Wednesday include Cardinal Health Inc., Cephalon Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Ortho-McNeil Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc, Allergan PLC, and Watson Pharma Inc., among others.

“Plaintiff brings this civil action to eliminate the hazard to publish health and safety caused by the opioid epidemic; to abate the nuisance caused thereby, and to recoup monies that have been spent, or will be spent, because of Defendants’ false, deceptive and unfair marketing and/ or unlawful diversion of prescription opioids,” according to the complaint.

Those costs include money for medical care, costs for rehabilitation and related services, and “costs associated with law enforcement and public safety” relating to the opioid epidemic, according to the Athens-Clarke complaint.

One rural South Georgia county had to establish a drug court primarily because of opioid-related cases at a cost of $400,000 a year, he said.

The Georgia complaints will be combined with dozens of similar lawsuits across the United States in a process called multi-district litigation. The cases will be grouped with dozens or hundreds of others in the federal Northern District of Ohio.