Court orders Johnson & Johnson to pay $572 million for their role in the opioid crisis in Oklahoma

A judge discovered Johnson & Johnson liable for fueling the opioid crisis in Oklahoma on Monday, August 26th, and ordered the healthcare business to pay $572 million to remedy the destruction inflicted on the country and its inhabitants by the outbreak. 

The landmark decision of Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman is the first to hold a drugmaker guilty of the failure of years of liberal opioid dispensation that started in the early 1990s, sparking a nationwide epidemic of death and addiction overdose. Since 1999, over 400,000 individuals have been killed by overdoses of painkillers, heroin and illegal fentanyl.

“The opioid crisis has ravaged the state of Oklahoma and must be abated immediately. As a matter of law, I find that defendants’ actions caused harm, and those harms are the kinds recognized by [state law] because those actions annoyed, injured or endangered the comfort, repose, health or safety of Oklahomans,” Balkman wrote in the decision.

With more than 40 countries lined up in the US to pursue comparable allegations against the pharmaceutical industry, the decision in the first state case to go to court could affect the policies of both parties in the coming months and years.

The judgment was welcomed by lawyers across the nation, stating they hoped it would serve as a model for a huge federal lawsuit brought by nearly 2,000 towns, counties, Native American tribes and others, scheduled to start in October.

The judge did not grant all it sought to the state. State attorneys had asked for therapy, emergency care, law enforcement, social services and other addiction-related needs for $17.5 billion over 30 years. But the judge found that in the first year, based on the plan of the state, it would cost $572 million to solve the crisis. He said the state did not provide "adequate proof" of the time and money needed to respond after that.

Johnson & Johnson, who refused any wrongdoing, said that the judgment would be appealed. "Janssen has not caused the Oklahoma opioid crisis and neither the facts nor the law support this result," said Johnson & Johnson's general counsel, Michael Ullmann.