Judge in opioid lawsuits slaps Dewine, attorneys

CLEVELAND — A federal judge overseeing more than 1,500 lawsuits over the nation’s opioid epidemic said at a private status conference that he was displeased by statements Ohio’s Mike Dewine and other attorneys made on “60 Minutes,” characterizing them as going “right up to the edge of where anyone should go.”

U.S. District Judge Dan Polster in Cleveland told attorneys at a status conference Thursday that he watched the Dec. 16 segment that ran on the CBS newsmagazine program and read the segment’s transcript.

He said he wasn’t going to address or issue any orders for sanctions, as attorneys for several drug companies requested, but he strongly admonished all attorneys present and on the status conference call to watch what they say publicly about the litigation.

“I don’t want to see anything more like I saw on ‘60 Minutes,’ and I don’t want to see anything on the defense side either,” Polster said, according to a transcript of the status conference filed Monday. “So everyone’s going to be behaving professionally. That goes for the lawyers or the clients.”

Counsel for the drug manufacturers and distributors sought punishment for Dewine, who was sworn in as Ohio’s governor on Monday but was attorney general at the time of the interview, and attorneys Mike Moore and Burton Leblanc over statements they made regarding potential jury verdicts and a set of government-collected data about prescription drug sales and shipments.

Court documents filed Jan. 4 claimed that the statements could taint a jury pool for a trial Polster set for September and that they violated court orders Polster has issued.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that the drug companies have undertaken their own efforts to push a narrative that they are not at fault for the nation’s opioid epidemic.

A brief docket entry from Thursday showed that Polster gave direction to attorneys at the status conference and then declined to address the companies’ court filings as moot.