The United States Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a nationwide agreement with the OxyContin maker Purdue Pharmawhich would have protected members of the Sackler family, which owns the company, from civil lawsuits over the cost of opioids, but would also have provided billions of dollars to combat the opioid epidemic.
After deliberating for more than six months, the justices, in a 5-4 vote, blocked a settlement worked out with state and local governments and victims. The Sacklers would have contributed up to $6 billion and given up ownership of the company, but retained billions more. The agreement called for the company to emerge from bankruptcy as a separate entity, with its profits going toward treatment and prevention.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, representing the majority, said that “nothing in current law authorizes Sackler’s removal.”
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
“Opioid victims and other future victims of mass torts will suffer greatly as a result of today’s unfortunate and destabilizing decision,” Kavanaugh wrote.
The high court had put the deal on hold last summer, in response to objections from President Joe Biden’s administration.
It is unclear what will happen next.
Arguments in early December lasted nearly two hours in a packed courtroom as the justices appeared, by turns, unwilling to alter a carefully negotiated settlement and reluctant to reward the Sacklers.
The question for the justices was whether the legal shield that bankruptcy provides can be extended to people like the Sacklers, who have not filed for bankruptcy. Lower courts had issued conflicting decisions on that issue, which also has implications for other major products liability lawsuits resolved through the bankruptcy system.
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