Nevada Opioid Litigation: $1.1 Billion in Settlements Against 40+ Manufacturers, Distributors, and Pharmacies

In June 2019, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford filed a 241-page complaint in Clark County District Court naming more than 40 defendants across the opioid supply chain. The suit alleged that manufacturers pressured physicians to over-prescribe opioids while concealing addiction risks, and that distributors and pharmacies flooded Nevada communities with excessive quantities of pills while deliberately misleading regulators about suspicious order patterns. The filing replaced a narrower 2018 action targeting only Purdue Pharma.

To handle the litigation, the Attorney General's office ran a competitive selection process among nine law firms, with Ford recusing himself due to his prior employment at Eglet Adams. The firm was retained on a contingency basis as outside counsel, taking on the case with no guaranteed recovery for the state.

Over the next four years, Eglet Adams worked alongside the AG's office to negotiate settlements with defendants one by one. A major milestone came when Nevada rejoined the $26 billion national multistate settlement in early 2022, after initially opting out. That move secured approximately $285 million from McKesson, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and Johnson & Johnson combined, with payments structured over 17 years. Earlier, McKinsey and Company had settled for $45 million. Teva Pharmaceuticals reached a $193 million agreement. The litigation concluded in July 2023 when Walgreens agreed to pay $285 million over 15 years, bringing the total across all 12 settlement and bankruptcy agreements to more than $1.1 billion.

At the July 2023 press conference announcing the Walgreens deal, Attorney General Ford called the aggregate recovery a measure of the true damage the opioid crisis inflicted on Nevada communities. Eglet Adams had served as the state's outside counsel throughout the four-year litigation, having won the contract in 2019 over eight competing firms.

After attorney fees and costs, approximately $98 million flows to the Fund for Resilient Nevada to support evidence-based opioid treatment and recovery programs. An additional $116 million is directed to local governments through the One Nevada Agreement, which allocates funds among 29 counties and municipalities.