Baltimore may receive much less than it was hoping from its trial against opioid distributors McKesson and AmerisourceBergen after a ruling from Maryland Circuit Court Judge Lawerence Fletcher-Hill last Friday.
Fletcher-Hill ruled that Baltimore is due $100 million in abatement funds from the companies to rectify future issues caused by the widespread sale and distribution of opioids over the last two decades.
The decision is significantly less than the more than $5 billion the city requested for abatement in its more than 90-page plan spelling out what needs to be done to reduce overdoses and stem addiction in the city.
“We have received the court’s abatement ruling and are considering all options at this time. We remain committed to securing justice for all Baltimore residents disproportionately impacted by the opioids crisis,” Mayor Brandon Scott said in a statement. “We will respond in due time in the appropriate judicial forum.”
The case against McKesson and AmerisourceBergen was separated into two different phases: damages to pay for the harm that has been committed and abatement to pay for future issues.
Last November, a jury found the two companies liable for their role in the opioid epidemic and awarded the city $266 million in damages.
In June, Fletcher-Hill reduced that decision saying the jury placed too much liability on the companies and that the liability money the jury awarded was too high.
“The jury’s award of damages reflects a conclusion that the unreasonable conduct of these two distributor Defendants creates legal responsibility for 97% of the entirety of the harm experienced by the City for the public nuisance from 2011 through 2029 in the future,” Fletcher-Hill wrote. “The Court concludes that the extent of the liability imposed cannot be justified by the evidence presented at trial.”
Fletcher-Hill said the city is entitled to $52 million in damages or it can ask for a retrial.
The judge stated that the $100 million in abatement funds would only be available if the city took the $52 million.
In the abatement ruling, the judge said the city put too much liability on the two companies and that Baltimore must build off of the programs for overdose prevention it already has available.
“The city advances a theory that defendants must be made to pay for every aspect of every measure, even if the measure already exists,” the judge wrote. “The city also seems to suggest that the court should include any measure that has any conceivably beneficial effect, without considering any assessment of whether the measure will have an effect that warrants its cost. The court takes what it thinks is a more practical approach of building on existing resources and trying to target effective measures without excessive cost.”
The companies plan to appeal the abatement decision.
The rulings reduces the amount the city expected to get in its strategy to sue opioid companies and distributors separately instead of signing onto a global settlement, which would have only awarded the city about $60 million.
Baltimore has until Aug. 22 to decide if it will take the money or ask for a retrial.
Baltimore has still won more than $400 million in settlements outside of the trial, which translates to about $250 million after legal fees.
