A lawsuit alleges that the Sackler family that owns Purdue Pharma has been transferring billions of dollars from the company to personal accounts in an effort to protect funds from litigation, reports The Washington Post.

“Now, as the maker of OxyContin heads to bankruptcy court, those billions represent a central sticking point in the company’s plan to resolve thousands of lawsuits against it. Purdue asked the bankruptcy judge, Robert D. Drain, on Wednesday to take the unusual step of temporarily halting lawsuits against the Sackler family,” write the Post‘s Renae Merle and Lenny Bernstein.

The company said the Sackler family could back out of a settlement agreement with multiple states if it cannot get the protection it seeks.

Read the Post article.

A New Jersey judge struck a BigLaw attorney’s closing argument for Johnson & Johnson on Wednesday in a case alleging asbestos in the company’s talcum powder caused mesothelioma in the plaintiffs’ stomach linings, reports the ABA Journal.

Judge Ana Viscomi of New Brunswick struck from the record the entire argument made by Diane Sullivan, a litigation partner with Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

According to reports, Sullivan told jurors that experts for the plaintiffs didn’t draw a connection between talcum powder and mesothelioma until they were hired by the plaintiffs. “When you don’t have evidence, sometimes you have to create it,” Sullivan said.

Viscomi said the closing argument was “replete with conduct this court has already warned you about.”

Read the ABA Journal article.

The judgment in the Oklahoma opioid litigation, if upheld, could yield a huge return on investment for the private lawyers hired by Oklahoma’s Republican Attorney General Mike Hunter, reports Legal Newsline.

“Under their 2017 contract with the state, those lawyers — Whitten Burrage, Nix Patterson and Glenn Coffee & Associates — get 25% of any award up to $100 million with that percentage falling to 15% of anything over $500 million,” writes Legal Newsline’s Daniel Fisher.

And more big bucks could be in the pipeline: “They stand to earn $90 million in fees from this verdict, on top of $59 million of the $260 million Purdue Pharma settlement and another $21 million from an $85 million Teva settlement in June.”

Read the Legal Newsline article.

Mark Yacura has joined Michael Best’s Washington, D.C. office as partner and will focus his practice FDA Regulatory matters. Previously, Yacura was a partner at Quarles & Brady LLP.

In a release, the firm said Yacura provides counsel and representation to his clients on a wide breadth of Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-related matters in connection with synthetic pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, diagnostics, medical devices, conventional foods, dietary supplements, and cosmetics. He regularly advises clients on the FDA approval and clearance process, regulatory compliance and enforcement issues, labeling, manufacturing and advertising claims and substantiation, due diligence, securities filings, collaboration licensing, and supply and clinical trial agreements, among other related matters.

In addition to his extensive work with the FDA, Yacura also handles matters before several other administrative agencies. This includes the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Trade Commission, and the National Advertising Division of the Better Business Bureau.

Yacura earned his J.D., cum laude, from the American University Washington College of Law, his M.B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh, and his B.S. in Pharmacy from Duquesne University.

The first Texas trial addressing the role of pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors and physicians in creating and fueling the state’s opioid crisis has been scheduled for Dallas County next year.

Judge Robert Schaffer, who will preside over Texas’ opioid multidistrict litigation (MDL), announced the initial county cases will include Dallas, Angelina, Freestone and Kendall counties. The first, Dallas County, will be heard in the fall of 2020. Dallas County is represented in its opioid-related case by the law firms of Simon Greenstone Panatier, P.C., The Lanier Firm and The Cochran Firm.

“The public nuisance these drug companies have created is of epidemic proportions, destroying countless lives and families, and costing Dallas County taxpayers far too much. There must be a reckoning, and through this case, there soon will be,” said Jeffrey Simon of Simon Greenstone Panatier, P.C.

The Dallas County MDL seeks to hold several prescription opioid manufacturers, wholesale distributors and certain doctors responsible for their role in the opioid painkiller epidemic.

“Recently uncovered records reveal that more than 461 million prescription pain pills were supplied to Dallas County residents from 2006 to 2012. That’s enough for every man, woman and child in Dallas County to consume 28 narcotic pills a year,” said Simon.

A release from the firm states:

Once tightly regulated, the pharmaceutical industry made a dedicated push to encourage doctors to expand the prescription of the powerful painkillers beginning in the late 1990s, promoting claims that opioids were a safe, non-addictive means to treat even moderate chronic pain on a long-term basis. The resulting epidemic caused significant increases in addiction and overdose deaths, skyrocketing health care costs and demands on community services, such as courts, child services, treatment centers, emergency response and public safety.

“Records also show that as the opioid epidemic grew worse, defendants supplied more of them,” said Simon. “They profited by flooding Dallas County with narcotic pills that were manufactured from the same base molecule – morphine – as heroin, but these pills were often sold in doses more powerful than heroin.”

Trial law firm Martin Walker has earned honors for winning the largest medical malpractice verdict in Texas in 2018 for the $43.32 million jury award against Tyler-based East Texas Medical Center and one of its doctors. The editors of Texas Lawyer included the verdict in the magazine’s listing of Top Verdicts and Settlements, 10th Edition, based on research gathered by VerdictSearch.

A jury found ETMC grossly negligent for allowing Dr. Gary Boyd to treat 61-year-old Billy Pierce, despite having been placed on probation by the Texas Medical Board. Pierce was admitted in April 2014 with stomach pain and vomiting.

During the trial, Martin Walker attorneys argued the hospital bylaws should have prevented Boyd from practicing at the facility. Testimony showed that Boyd diagnosed Pierce with an abnormality he said would make surgery to remove bile duct stones impossible. For more than a month, the firm said, Pierce was in a medically induced coma during which time Boyd and the hospital abandoned him, according to testimony. Once the hospital sought a second opinion, a new doctor rejected Boyd’s diagnosis and operated without complication.

Jurors agreed that Boyd’s improper care led to the loss of Pierce’s quality of life and his ability to provide for his family. The $43 million verdict included $18.57 million for past and future pain, anguish, loss of earning capacity, and medical care and expenses. The jury also awarded $25 million in punitive damages, after concluding the hospital’s conduct involved an extreme risk of potential harm to others.

Pierce was represented by Martin Walker name partners Reid Martin and Jack Walker and attorney Marisa Schouten. The case is Billy Pierce v. East Texas Medical Center and Dr. Gary Boyd and the ETMC Digestive Disease Center, Cause No. 16-0853-C in the 241st District Court in Smith County.

The firm is based in Tyler, Texas.

Each year, VerdictSearch conducts a comprehensive review to produce the list of top verdicts in Texas. The full list is published in the July 2019 issue of Texas Lawyer.

The former compliance officer and president of pharmaceutical distributor Miami-Luken were charged alongside two West Virginia pharmacists by federal prosecutors in Ohio Thursday with conspiring to distribute controlled substances.

ABC News reports Miami-Luken’s former compliance officer, James Barclay, and former president, Anthony Rattini, were charged.

“In one instance, prosecutors claim that Miami-Luken distributed 3.7 million hydrocodone pills to a single pharmacy in Kermit, West Virginia — a town with a population of about 400 people from 2008 to 2011. That averages out to 9,250 hydrocodone pills for every resident of the town,” reports ABC’s Luke Barr.

Read the ABC News article.

As concern mounts over health risks from so-called “forever chemicals,” environmental trial lawyers at Dallas-based Fears Nachawati Law Firm are investigating water contamination cases on behalf of states, counties and cities across the nation.

In a release, the firm said groundwater contamination from fluorine-based PFAS compounds has been reported at hundreds of sites across the U.S., threatening the drinking water of millions of Americans. Industrial chemicals including PFAS, PFOA and PFC have been widely used by corporations to make nonstick and stain-resistant consumer and industrial products. They are also found in fire-retardant foam, which has led to large-scale groundwater contamination at military sites.

Environmental trial lawyers at Fears Nachawati are actively involved in litigation seeking to hold industrial manufacturers accountable for groundwater contamination.

“Sadly, we’ve seen the regulations move in the wrong direction when it comes to protecting Americans from this serious health threat,” said environmental trial lawyer Bryan Fears, co-founder of Fears Nachawati. “Instead of increasing oversight and forcing polluters to take action and clean up these sites, regulators are loosening deadlines and sending the wrong signals to polluters. We all have a collective responsibility to get to the bottom of the cause of weakened environmental standards. This is about the future of our children’s drinking water.”

Called “forever chemicals” because they never fully degrade, polyfluorocarbons (PFC) are a group of synthetic chemicals that include PFAS and PFOA that have been in use since the 1940s, the firm said. The compounds have been found in drinking water used by 110 million people across the nation and is estimated to be in the bloodstreams of 98 percent of Americans. The compounds have been linked to immune system problems and cancer. Recently, the Food and Drug Administration reported the discovery of PFAS compounds in grocery store meats, milk and seafood as well as in off-the-shelf products such as chocolate cake.

“When corporations fail to accept responsibility for the damage they’ve caused and when regulators decline to protect our most precious resources, it’s up to state and local governments and the American people to demand action,” said Fears Nachawati co-founder Majed Nachawati.

The Dallas-based law firm Fears Nachawati has been retained by the Calvert County Board of County Commissioners in Maryland to pursue a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers and distributors over their role in the epidemic of addiction to these painkillers, the firm said in a release.

Representing the southern Maryland county is a legal consortium that features Matthew McCarley and Jonathan Novak of Fears Nachawati, along with attorneys from Ferrer, Poirot & Wansbrough in Dallas; Motley Rice in Washington, D.C.; and The Kane Law Group and McNamee, Hosea, Jernigan, Kim Greenan & Lynch in Maryland.

Just southeast of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, Calvert County has seen its public resources overburdened by the societal, health and public safety demands created by the reckless proliferation of prescription opioids, plaintiffs say.

“The opioid epidemic has continued at a horrifying pace, taking a tremendous human toll and creating intense financial and social services pressures on local governments such as Calvert County,” said McCarley. “There is no single, simple solution, but recovery cannot begin until those who knowingly created the problem are held responsible for their actions.”

Fears Nachawati currently represents 61 counties, cities and hospital systems in Texas, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New Mexico and North Dakota in lawsuits seeking to hold 30 of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors liable for their role in the opioid addiction crisis that resulted from deceptive and illegal marketing schemes.

“While we fight to recover some of the financial costs related to the public health emergency caused by the overuse of prescription opioids, this is also about stopping these illegal and unethical practices,” said Novak.

In a class action complaint filed last week, the plaintiffs’ firm Mazie Slater Katz & Freeman alleges that several New Jersey and Texas law firms committed procedural violations and overcharged clients in about 1,450 mesh cases brought in New Jersey state courts, reports Reuters.

Alison Frankel of Reuters explains:

According to the complaint, the law firms – including Nagel Rice, the Potts Law Firm, Bailey Cowan Heckaman, Annie McAdams and Junell & Associates – failed to sign clients to retainer agreements or purported to bind clients to contracts that don’t comply with New Jersey laws and ethics rules. The complaint, filed in Superior Court in Bergen County, New Jersey, asserts claims for malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment.

Read the Reuters article.

Hugh Culverhouse Jr.,  a lawyer and the University of Alabama’s largest donor, has called for a boycott of Alabama — school and state — over the state’s latest near-total abortion ban law, according to a report on AL.com.

Abbey Crain writes that the UA System and Culverhouse have been in an ongoing dispute over the millions he has donated to the law school unrelated to the abortion legislation, vice chancellor for communications Kellee Reinhart said. In an emailed statement, Reinhart said Culverhouse asked the school to return $10 million, “repeating numerous demands about the operations of the University of Alabama School of Law.”

A university spokesperson said the dispute over Culverhouse donations is unrelated to the recent abortion legislation. But Culverhouse said, “All foreign and U.S. international firms that do business in Alabama should boycott. It would get the law changed quickly.”

Read the AL.com article.

The U.S. Supreme Court has turned away an appeal of a ruling against the widow of a Reed Smith partner who blamed the labeling of the antidepressant Paxil for her husband’s suicide.

The court denied the appeal petition from plaintiff Wendy Dolin in her lawsuit against pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, reports the Cook County Record.

“Dolin had sued GSK over the death of her husband, Stewart Dolin, who had committed suicide in a downtown Chicago transit station in 2010,” writes the Record‘s Jonathan Bilyk. “Dolin alleged her husband’s suicidal behavior was caused by the drug paroxetine, the generic version of GSK’s Paxil. The warning label for paroxetine is identical to the label for Paxil.”

Read the Cook County Record report.

Thirteen Texas attorneys from global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP have been recognized in the 2019 Chambers USA Guide, one of the most prestigious listings for business lawyers. In addition, Chambers recognized three practice areas in Texas: Health Care, Intellectual Property, and Real Estate.

Kent Newsome, chair of the Texas Real Estate Practice and co-managing shareholder of the Houston office, received a Band 1 ranking in Real Estate. Thomas J. Bond, the firm’s Austin managing shareholder and co-chair of its Government Law & Policy and Insurance Regulatory & Transactions Practices, earned a Band 1 ranking in Insurance.

Read the complete list of GT lawyers honored by Chambers USA.

Image by Mike Mozart

Reuters is reporting that Bayer AG plans to argue that a $2 billion jury award and thousands of U.S. lawsuits claiming its glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup causes cancer should be tossed because a U.S. regulatory “agency said the herbicide is not a public health risk.

“Some legal experts believe Bayer will have a tough time convincing appellate courts to throw out verdicts and lawsuits on those grounds,” writes Reuters’ Tina Bellon. “Bayer has a better shot if a business-friendly U.S. Supreme Court takes up the case, experts said. But that could take years.”

Bayer acquired Monsanto, the manufacturer of Roundup, last year, and the litigation involving 13,400 plaintiffs went along with the deal. The plaintiffs allege the product causes cancer. So far, three consecutive U.S. juries have found the product to be carcinogenic, resulting in verdicts amounting to billions of dollars.

Read the Reuters article.

When considering employment by a hospital or health system, physicians should be mindful of various provisions that are often contained in physician employment agreements and how these provisions may impact the physician’s professional practice and personal life, advises McBrayer PLLC.

Christopher J. Shaughnessy discusses some important issues to consider when evaluating whether to enter into an employment agreement with a hospital or health system.

The article covers issues such as compensation, call coverage requirements, professional liability insurance coverage and “tail coverage,” and non-compete clauses.

Read the article.

Fears Nachawati trial lawyer Jonathan Novak will be a featured speaker at a continuing legal education conference in Austin exploring legal issues surrounding the opioid epidemic.

The May 8 Opioid Litigation Conference, hosted by HarrisMartin Publishing, is titled “The State Court Case Against the PBMs, Retailers and Distributors.” Novak is scheduled to present the 11:15 a.m. seminar “Roadmap for Applying DEA Retail Pharmacy Regulation Strategy to State Claims,” a general discussion on distributor liability theories in the opioid litigation.

A former litigator with the U.S. Department of Justice, Novak’s work focused on controlled substance regulation, policy and compliance, including prosecuting opioid cases and working with the federal ARCOS database, which collects information on controlled substances transactions involving manufacturers and distributors, the firm said in a release.

At the Austin Opioid Litigation Conference, Novak also will participate in the 1:30 p.m. roundtable discussion on ARCOS data.

Novak played a role in an investigation detailing how opioid distributors worked with a handful of lawmakers to push through a law that stripped the Drug Enforcement Administration of its authority. After leaving the DEA, he took part in a high-profile opioid investigation that exposed the slowdown of DEA enforcement and the influence of pharmaceutical companies over agency investigations and prosecutions. His work was featured on “60 Minutes” and in The Washington Post.

A Miami-based personal injury attorney, a prostate cancer survivor, sued his health-care insurance provider in April, accusing it of wrongfully denying him and potentially thousands of other men coverage for a lifesaving prostate cancer treatment.

Richard Cole has had a hard time finding a judge to hear his case, if only because they all keep recusing themselves, reports The Washington Post.

Then one judge, who also felt he had to recuse himself and who was a prostate cancer survivor himself, made it clear how he felt about the case. In his recusal order, U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola Jr. wrote “To deny a patient this treatment, if it is available, is immoral and barbaric.”

Read the Post article.

Purdue Pharma’s chief executive said the company is considering bankruptcy as it faces a cascade of lawsuits alleging that the drugmaker played a key role in driving the nation’s opioid crisis, including aggressively and deceptively marketing the powerful painkiller OxyContin, reports The Washington Post.

Craig Landau said that the company has not yet decided whether to file bankruptcy, but it is something the company is weighing as it considers the impact of potential legal settlements or jury verdicts that could cost tens of billions of dollars, according to the Post‘s Katie Zezima.

“Declaring bankruptcy could halt litigation against the company, bankruptcy lawyers said, and it can be more difficult for plaintiffs to secure judgments in bankruptcy court than in civil court,” Zezima writes.

Read the Post article.

Image by Mike Mozart

A lawyer representing a man who claims Bayer AG’s Roundup weed killer caused his cancer urged jurors to imagine the scales of justice ever so slightly tilted in his favor, as if weighted by a feather, and said that would be enough to advance his trial to the next and final phase, reports Bloomberg.

Reporter Joel Rosenblatt summarized the argument of Aimee Wagstaff, representing Edwin Hardeman:

Roundup, not hepatitis, caused Hardeman’s cancer, his lawyers argued at a critical juncture in the company’s second U.S. trial over the popular herbicide. Hardeman’s exposure to Roundup “was a real factor, it doesn’t have to be the only cause” of his cancer, Wagstaff said. “It doesn’t have to be the only cause of his harm,” even if they determine hepatitis “may have played a role,” she added.

Read the Bloomberg article.

CNN is reporting that Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter has argued in court filings that Johnson & Johnson should be compelled to release millions of pages of documents about its role in the opioid epidemic.

The company acted as an opioid “kingpin” by using a web of foreign and domestic subsidiaries to supply raw materials “necessary to manufacture the opioid pain medications thrust upon the unsuspecting public since the 1990s,” Hunter alleged.

“The Oklahoma case is set to be the first in the nation to go before a jury that could determine pharmaceutical companies’ role in the nation’s opioid epidemic and whether Big Pharma should pay for it,” writes CNN’s Wayne Drash. “On Friday, District Court Judge Thad Balkman denied pharmaceutical companies’ request for a delay, saying it is in the public’s interest for the trial to begin May 28.”

Read the CNN article.