The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation has been asked to consolidate more than 60 opioid addiction lawsuits, but states and drug makers have differing responses to the request.

A law office that is representing more than forty municipalities that have launched opioid addiction lawsuits has made the request to the JPML to consolidate these lawsuits. These opioid addiction lawsuits are currently pending in approximately a dozen different federal courts. This request for centralization has asked that these opioid addiction lawsuits be sent to either the Southern District of Illinois or the Southern District of Ohio.

This request for centralization was made in September 2017. In October 2017, just one month later, the drug makers listed in the lawsuits as well as retailers, distributors and some government organizations responded. Their responses are divided between some who are in favor of consolidation and others who are not.

The reason the request has been made for consolidation of the opioid addiction lawsuits is that, according to Law360, “they share common questions about the manufacture, distribution and sales of opioids by the defendants, and they largely target the country’s largest drug distributors, though some also name drugmakers Purdue, Teva and Cephalon.”

Most of the drug makers are in favor of consolidating the opioid addiction lawsuits. However, they would like them to be centralized in the Northern District of Illinois. In this district, a federal opioid addiction lawsuit is pending and is advanced in the process.

The drug makers are amenable to centralization because they say that these opioid addiction lawsuits have common factual and legal issues and that centralizing the cases would help to streamline the processes. Additionally, this proposed centralization would conserve resources.

They have also suggested that the consolidation of the opioid addiction lawsuits could be sent to the Southern District of New York because it is near their places of business.

Additionally, the large distributors that have been named in the proposed consolidated MDL, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson Corp. also said that the two districts that the plaintiffs are proposing is not acceptable for them. They have suggested it would be more appropriate to consolidate in the Southern District of West Virginia, where 16 opioid addiction cases are pending.

Both CVS and Omnicare Distribution Center oppose the consolidation of the opioid addiction lawsuits. They claim that CVS is only named in four suits so consolidation would not benefit them. They said, “It is not appropriate to foist upon the CVS Defendants the burdens of participating in centralized litigation of more than 60 cases to which they are not a party and which involve particularized facts and claims wholly distinct from the four West Virginia cases in which any of the CVS Defendants have been named.”

Rite Aid also has opposed the formation of the MDL claiming that it is only named in seven suits. Similarly, the state of New Hampshire has said that it does not have an opinion either way about the necessity of the consolidation of the opioid addiction lawsuits.

In general, opioid addiction lawsuits are filed individually by each plaintiff and are not class actions.

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