Oklahoma Supreme Court overturns historic opioid ruling against Johnson & Johnson

Oklahoma’s highest court reversed a historic ruling against drugmaker Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday, finding a judge incorrectly interpreted public nuisance laws in the nation’s first major trial over the opioid epidemic.

The 5-to-1 decision that overturned the $465 million verdict issued by Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman in 2019 is a blow to the argument alleging the companies that marketed, sold and distributed opioids created a public nuisance, allowing communities to be inundated by billions of pills while people were becoming addicted and overdosing. A similar claim is being tested in courts by other communities suing companies, arguing they are in part responsible for the public health crisis that has killed more than 500,000 people in two decades.

It remains to be seen how that argument will fare in other courts. Companies scored a win last week in California when a judge said he would rule against several large counties arguing public nuisance claims because they had not proved deceptive marketing increased medically unnecessary prescriptions. Other cases hinging on similar arguments have not yet been heard or decided. In West Virginia, a federal judge is considering his ruling in a case that centers on a public nuisance claim, with hard-hit communities alleging distributors shipped opioids to their area without regard for red flags. The distributors have denied wrongdoing.

“In reaching this decision, we do not minimize the severity of the harm that thousands of Oklahoma citizens have suffered because of opioids,” the Oklahoma Supreme Court judges wrote in their ruling. “However grave the public of opioid addiction is in Oklahoma, public nuisance law does not provide a remedy for this harm.”

Johnson & Johnson, praising the decision Tuesday, confirmed that none of the $465 million has been given to communities to abate the overdose crisis.

“Today the Oklahoma State Supreme Court appropriately and categorically rejected the misguided and unprecedented expansion of the public nuisance law as a means to regulate the manufacture, marketing, and sale of products, including the Company’s prescription opioid medications,” Johnson & Johnson spokesman Jake Sargent wrote in a statement.

Oklahoma Attorney General John Connor, R, said the 2019 decision was “a huge victory for Oklahoma citizens and their families who have been ravaged by opioids” and said he was “disappointed” in Tuesday’s ruling. “Our staff will be exploring options,” he said in a statement. “We are still pursuing our other pending claims against opioid distributors who have flooded our communities with these highly addictive drugs for decades. Oklahomans deserve nothing less.”