J&J Ordered to Pay $572 Million in Opioid Case

Oklahoma county judge Thad Balkman ruled 8/26 against Johnson & Johnson in the state’s opioid trial, saying the company must pay $572 million in the first ruling in the U.S. holding a drugmaker responsible for helping fuel the opioid epidemic. The judge called the opioid crisis an “imminent danger and menace,” and he said the state “met its burden that the defendants Janssen and Johnson & Johnson’s misleading marketing and promotion of opioids created a nuisance as defined by [the law].” The case was prosecuted under the state’s nuisance law.

The $572 million amounts to one year of costs under the state’s plan to combat the crisis, even though the attorney general’s office said it would take at least 20 years to carry out. “The state did not present sufficient evidence of the amount of time and costs necessary, beyond year one, to abate the opioid crisis,” the judge said.

Johnson & Johnson is appealing the decision.