Purdue Must Face Deceptive-Marketing Suit in Massachusetts
Purdue Loses Bid to Get Massachusetts Opioid Lawsuit Tossed
(Bloomberg) -- A judge has rejected Purdue Pharma LP’s request to toss out a deceptive-marketing lawsuit by Massachusetts seeking to recover taxpayer money spent dealing with the opioid crisis in the state.
The decision by Superior Court Judge Janet Sanders in Boston is a setback for the maker of the highly addictive OxyContin painkiller and the company’s owners, the Sackler family, less than a week after Purdue filed for bankruptcy court protection to deal with more than 2,000 lawsuits.
Bankruptcy filings typically put a hold on all litigation against a company that’s seeking court protection. However, that doesn’t apply to lawsuits filed by state governments that invoke their police or regulatory powers. Purdue has asked a New York bankruptcy judge to protect it from such claims anyway.
Sanders didn’t rule on the merits of the case, but said the state had sufficiently backed its claim, for now, that Purdue failed to change its behavior after reaching a consent judgment with Massachusetts and other states in 2007 that barred the company from “any written or oral claim that is false, misleading, or deceptive” in marketing OxyContin. That agreement came after one of its predecessor companies and three executives pleaded guilty to illegal misbranding of the painkiller.
“Purdue, despite its promises, did not substantively alter its deceptive and illegal marketing practices,” Sanders said in a summary of the allegations. “Rather, it continued to downplay its opioids’ propensities for addiction and abuse in its messaging to doctors so as to persuade them to prescribe the opioids at greater frequency, at ever-higher (and more expensive) doses, and for longer treatment durations.”
Massachusetts claims Purdue knew that the marketing tactics would lead to more patients becoming addicted and increase the likelihood of overdose and death, according to the ruling.
A Purdue spokeswoman, Josephine Martin, declined to comment on the ruling. The company has previously strongly denied such allegations and said it is being unfairly blamed for a complex public-health crisis.
Of Purdue’s arguments for a dismissal, the judge said the company was raising questions of fact that needed to be addressed later in the case, and that the state attorney general, Maura Healey, made proper allegations with “extensive detail” that must be accepted by the judge as true, for now.
The ruling addressed only Purdue’s motion to dismiss the suit. The Sacklers, who are also named in the state’s complaint, have also asked the judge to throw the case out. Sanders said in her ruling that she expects to issue decisions on their motions in the new few weeks.
Representatives of the Sacklers didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment.
“We brought this lawsuit to hold Purdue and the Sacklers accountable, after our investigation revealed how they broke the law and deceived the American public,” Healey said in a statement. “I am pleased that the court has allowed us to continue pursuing justice on behalf of families in Massachusetts.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Steve Stroth
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