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Ohio's State Supreme Court has struck down one of the central legal arguments used against corporations accused of fueling America's opioid crisis. In a 5-2 decision, judges ruled that so-called public-nuisance laws can't be used to force drug companies to help clean up the opioid crisis. The ruling is expected to have national implications and could even affect lawsuits against social media companies. NPR's Brian Mann reports.
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: When counties in Ohio started suing drugmakers and other big corporations involved in the opioid business, their legal argument went like this. The flood of highly addictive painkillers sold by corporate America ravaged communities, creating a public nuisance, so corporate America should be forced, under public nuisance laws, to help clean up the mess, paying for addiction care and other public services. Here's Greta Johnson, who works for Summit County, Ohio, speaking to NPR in 2018.
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GRETA JOHNSON: It feels like every day there is a new story of loss of life, loss of hope. The number of children we have in our Children's Services Bureau has just exponentially increased, and it is as a result of opioids.
MANN: That public nuisance argument seemed to be working. In 2022, two Ohio counties won big. The operators of three national pharmacy chains - CVS, Walgreens and Walmart - were ordered to pay more than $650 million. But this week, Ohio's Supreme Court tossed out that ruling and invalidated the entire public nuisance argument. Here's Greta Johnson speaking again today.
JOHNSON: It's disappointing, certainly. There are lots of communities who have suffered the same type of impacts and harms. So it is disappointing to see.
MANN: Experts say this ruling, combined with similar victories by corporations in California and Oklahoma, will make public-nuisance opioid cases far harder to bring around the U.S. But Adam Zimmerman, an expert on these cases at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, says the threat of public nuisance cases already convinced many corporations to sign national opioid settlements worth more than $60 billion.
ADAM ZIMMERMAN: Public-nuisance law was one of the strongest legal theories that all the cities and counties were relying on, so it was a very expansive legal theory that definitely drove a lot of the settlements.
MANN: National settlements already reached with corporations will stand. Tens of billions of dollars in payouts that have already begun won't be affected by this week's Ohio ruling. But experts say this is still a major win for corporate America. In a statement sent to NPR, a Walmart spokesperson said the Ohio Supreme Court ruling was a rejection of efforts to, quote, "radically expand public-nuisance law" - to sue companies over lawful products that are already regulated.
Zimmerman, at USC, agrees rulings like this one could sharply limit the use of public-nuisance arguments in other cases where companies are accused of wrongdoing, especially recent cases against social media platforms.
ZIMMERMAN: All the major social media companies, like Facebook and Twitter, ByteDance and others, have all been sued under a public-nuisance theory, claiming that their social media platforms are addictive to children.
MANN: In a statement sent to NPR, attorneys representing local governments in Ohio and around the U.S. said this ruling will have a devastating impact on communities and their ability to police corporate misconduct.
Brian Mann, NPR News.
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