Attorneys for Lake and Trumbull counties will return to a courtroom this spring, seeking to make three major pharmacy chains pay for their role in the opioid crisis.
In October, a federal jury found that CVS, Walgreens and Walmart created a public nuisance in the counties because the chains failed to stem the oversupply of prescription opioids through their stores. The verdict was the nation’s first involving the role of pharmacies in the opioid epidemic.
In documents, attorneys for the chains said the counties failed to produce evidence during the trial that a single prescription was improperly filled for illegitimate purposes. During the trial, the attorneys said that no state or federal regulator ever cited any of the stores in Lake or Trumbull counties.
Public nuisances have long stemmed from health concerns such as factories that pollute waterways or abandoned homes that have decayed so badly that neighborhoods become unsafe. Attorneys for the counties have stressed that the pharmacies’ actions constitute a public nuisance because they harmed the public through the oversupply of prescription painkillers.
In both cases, communities claimed the pharmaceutical companies used misleading marketing tactics to increase the sales of painkillers, a move that created the public nuisance, according to published reports.
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