Lawyer who targeted tobacco companies encourages state suits against drug makers for opioid crisis
Four states and more than a dozen cities and counties have filed lawsuits contending drug makers misrepresented the risks and benefits of opioid use, spurring an addiction crisis.
Some of the lawyers working on the suits were previously involved in lawsuits claiming tobacco companies misrepresented the health risks of smoking, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Among the lawyers is Michael Moore, who filed the first state lawsuit against tobacco companies in 1994 when he was attorney general of Mississippi. Soon after he left office in 2004, Moore got involved in lawsuits filed against OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma by patients who said they became addicted, despite taking the drug as prescribed. The suits settled for $74 million in 2007.
Now Moore’s law firm, based in Flowood, Mississippi, is helping represent the states of Mississippi and Ohio in their suits against drug makers. Missouri and Oklahoma also have also sued. Moore is also meeting with other lawyers representing government to coordinate arguments.
Another lawyer involved in the suits is Joe Rice of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina-based Motley Rice, who was outside counsel to two dozen states in the tobacco litigation. Rice notes that lawyers in the tobacco suits stayed in touch, and he expects communication among lawyers in the opioid suits.
Moore’s use of outside counsel while attorney general helped make the practice more popular, though some critics say the practice improperly gives law enforcement powers to law firms with an interest in profiting from the suits, the article points out.
In the Ohio case, the Journal reports that Moore’s law firm and five other firms have a fee agreement that gives them 25 percent of any recovery up to $10 million, and a smaller percentage for additional recoveries with a maximum fee of $50 million.
See also:
ABAJournal.com: “Drug firms knew opiates were being abused on Cherokee reservations but did nothing, lawsuit alleges”
Filed under: General Problems
I am in Spokane Washington. I have been mistreated so badly since I moved here almost4 years ago. It has affected me to the point that I no longer go to or even have a doctor. The lawyers here will not take my case against the hospital I went to for care because it is a conflict of interest. It is now too late as the statute of limitations has expired. However I do believe I have a case against the surgeon that refused to operate on me because I was “too fat, and a smoker.” This surgeon told me that “If i really wanted this surgery I’d starve myself.” I had gained 70 pounds after my Fall that would require surgery to arrest the bilateral drop foot and nerve damage that also caused neuropathy. I was told that “there was a window of opportunity to repair” that. He let 2 prior authorizations for spine surgery expire that I never knew about and strung me along for another 5 months telling me he was putting in for it and I would have a date in 2 weeks. When 3 passed, I’d call and reception would pull up my chart notes and say “no, because you’re still too fat.” After over a year and a half plus 5 months after I took off the weight he didn’t follow thru with a medically necessary surgery. So the last time I called to inquire about my surgery date and told once again that I was still too fat I called I reported everything to my state insurance on November 9, 2016, and was told to stop going to him and they filed a grievance against him. A few days later I called my insurance again to see if I could be approved to see a neurosurgeon in Seattle, that’s when I found out about the 2 expired prior authorizations and that surgeon had reported to them that I had walked out of the hospital on my surgery that he said was November 9, 2016, the same exact day I called and reported him for withholding medcal care from me and fat shaming me. My insurance knew he’d lied, there wasn’t a surgery scheduled for me on that day, and if there had been I would have been contacted by mail and by phone to let me know. What kills me the most tho is that if a person needs surgery as a medical necessity for quality of life and intervention for a serious spine injury it should be given the same respect and treatment that would be given to a morbidly obese person who presents with who presents with chest pains and needs coronary bypass surgery, or an obese person who needs their appendix removed to prevent rupture, those surgeries are given regardless if they’re overweight or if they smoke cigarettes. If those types of surgeries are not done it also affects their quality of life. Those surgeries and mine all run the same risks for infection and healing. I could understand if I was requesting an elective surgery like a nose job. I had over 3 years of my life wasted by Spokane doctors, ARNP’s, (that black listed me because I had supposedly failed a urinalysis that I am forced to give, which is a violation of my 4th adamant and referred to as a behavioral problem) and surgeons. I am now and have been for about a month living in suicidal agony. My quality of life will never improve and I have now no hope of ever being treated for the multiple painful chronic medical conditions I have, here or anywhere else for that matter because of those very effective medical notes that has caused every doctor I have seen for care here deny me treatment, refer me out to specialist so they can do the same to waste my time for nothing to be done but order more tests then send me back to the PvP who sent for treatment, because specialist diagnose doctors treat. I am judged by those notes before I am even seen. I am in so much pain everyday, I wakeup crying from it, I sit here thinking how unfair it is that I have to live another day like this and wondering if tomorrow will be the day I put a permanent end to my painful miserable existence. Today feels like that day.
Can someone PLEASE explain how a person misusing a drug is the doctor, pharmacist or drug makers fault? I don’t understand.
If any of my opiate MEDICINE is made by any of these companies,,i am willing to testify,,”for,,” the use of opiate medicine for human beings in physical pain,,,,,,any physical pain,,acute,,,chronic,,no matter,,,had’em all,,,MARYW