Book contents
- Public Nuisance
- Public Nuisance
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Historical Context of Private and Public Nuisance at Law and Equity
- 2 Shifting Mass Tort Theories in the 1990s and the Judicial Resistance to the Expansion of Public Nuisance Liability
- 3 Expanding Public Nuisance Doctrine
- 4 Litigating Public Nuisance Claims
- 5 Expanding Public Nuisance Doctrine: Defenses
- 6 Expanding Public Nuisance
- 7 Environmental Contamination, PCBs, and Climate Change as Public Nuisance Harms
- 8 Opioids as Public Nuisance Health and Welfare Harm
- 9 Firearms Violence as a Public Nuisance
- 10 E-Cigarettes and Vaping as a Public Nuisance Harm
- 11 Evaluating the Competing Arguments Regarding the Contemporary Use of Public Nuisance in Mass Tort Litigation
- Conclusion
- Index
8 - Opioids as Public Nuisance Health and Welfare Harm
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 November 2023
- Public Nuisance
- Public Nuisance
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Historical Context of Private and Public Nuisance at Law and Equity
- 2 Shifting Mass Tort Theories in the 1990s and the Judicial Resistance to the Expansion of Public Nuisance Liability
- 3 Expanding Public Nuisance Doctrine
- 4 Litigating Public Nuisance Claims
- 5 Expanding Public Nuisance Doctrine: Defenses
- 6 Expanding Public Nuisance
- 7 Environmental Contamination, PCBs, and Climate Change as Public Nuisance Harms
- 8 Opioids as Public Nuisance Health and Welfare Harm
- 9 Firearms Violence as a Public Nuisance
- 10 E-Cigarettes and Vaping as a Public Nuisance Harm
- 11 Evaluating the Competing Arguments Regarding the Contemporary Use of Public Nuisance in Mass Tort Litigation
- Conclusion
- Index
Summary
Chapter 8 contains an in-depth case study of the opioid mass tort litigation in federal and state courts. It describes the inception and development of the opioid drug crisis and how the opioid crisis affected state and local municipalities, in requiring additional expenditures of money to provide medical, policing, and various social services to communities affected by the crisis. The chapter describes the initiation of opiod litigation, the hundreds of lawsuit, consolidation and transfer of all the opioid litigation into a federal MDL under Judge Dan Polsters supervision in the Northern District of Ohio. The chapter chronicles the management and litigation in the federal MDL proceedings and Judge Polsters approval of a public nuisance claim which actually went to trial. The chapter narrates the resulting, cascading opioid settlements with opioid manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies concurrent with and after the MDL bellwether public nuisance trial. The chapter further chronicles the fate of opioid public nuisance in state courts, with a notable rejection of a public nuisance claim by the Oklahoma Supreme Court. The chapter ends by documenting the many state court opioid settlements during 2021-2022.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Public NuisanceThe New Mass Tort Frontier, pp. 155 - 181Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023