US Supreme Court blocks OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s settlement shielding owners from lawsuits
- The Supreme Court rejected a settlement with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma that shielded the owners of the company from future lawsuits
The US Supreme Court on Thursday blocked OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement that would have shielded its wealthy Sackler family owners from lawsuits over their role in the nation’s deadly opioid epidemic.
The 5-4 decision reversed a lower court’s ruling that had upheld the plan to give Purdue’s owners immunity in exchange for paying up to US$6 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits accusing the company of unlawful misleading marketing of OxyContin, a powerful pain medication introduced in 1996.
The ruling represented a victory for President Joe Biden’s administration, which had challenged the settlement as an abuse of bankruptcy protections meant for debtors in financial distress, not people like the Sacklers who have not filed for bankruptcy.
Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the ruling, which was joined by fellow conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett, as well as liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“The Sacklers have not filed for bankruptcy and have not placed virtually all their assets on the table for distribution to creditors, yet they seek what essentially amounts to a discharge. They hope to win a judicial order releasing pending claims against them brought by opioid victims. They seek an injunction ‘permanently and forever’ foreclosing similar suits in the future,” Gorsuch wrote. “And they seek all this without the consent of those affected.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a dissenting opinion that was joined by fellow conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, and liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.