$260 Million Opioid Settlement for Cuyahoga and Summit Counties

For nearly two decades, prescription opioids flooded communities across Ohio. By the time Cuyahoga and Summit counties filed suit, both had endured devastating overdose death rates, overwhelmed public health systems, and a generation of children placed into foster care as parents succumbed to addiction. The counties sued the three largest drug distributors in the country, McKesson, Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen, as well as Israeli manufacturer Teva Pharmaceuticals, alleging they had shipped tens of millions of opioid pills into Northeast Ohio while ignoring mounting evidence of widespread diversion and abuse.

The case was consolidated into the National Prescription Opiate Litigation, MDL No. 2804, before U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster in Cleveland. With more than 2,400 local governments and other plaintiffs involved nationally, Cuyahoga and Summit were selected as bellwether plaintiffs, meaning the outcome of their trial would signal the trajectory of the entire national litigation.

Peter Weinberger of Spangenberg Shibley and Liber was appointed by Judge Polster to serve as liaison counsel for the Plaintiffs' Executive Committee, a central coordinating role among roughly 300 attorneys from 21 firms working the case. Weinberger, alongside firm colleagues William Hawal and Jeremy Tor, spent years preparing the bellwether trial, developing the evidentiary record on distributor shipping practices and internal compliance failures.

Opening statements were scheduled for the morning of October 21, 2019. Through the night, negotiations accelerated. Hours before the courtroom was to convene, the four defendants agreed to pay a combined $260 million: the three distributors contributed $215 million in cash, while Teva added $20 million in cash and $25 million in Suboxone, a medication used to treat opioid dependency. Walgreens, also a named defendant, declined to participate and remained in the case for a subsequent trial phase.

The settlement funds were designated exclusively for abating the opioid epidemic in the two counties. Combined with amounts from prior partial settlements in the same litigation, Cuyahoga and Summit counties stood to receive more than $320 million in cash plus addiction treatment medication. The deal also established a public benchmark for the thousands of pending opioid cases still working through the federal MDL system.