The Oklahoma Opioid Settlement: A Promising Impact on Workers’ Compensation

The first major settlement in the nation’s massive litigation effort against the manufacturers of opioids may present an outline of how the effort will affect workers’ compensation programs throughout the United States. The settlement outlines a substantial contribution to assist those individuals negatively affected by opioid addiction. 

The Oklahoma Attorney general yesterday announced an historical settlement in the pending state’s opioid litigation. Attorney General Mike Hunter and Oklahoma State University leaders  announced an historic settlement with Purdue Pharma that will establish a nearly $200 million endowment at the Oklahoma State University’s Center for Wellness and Recovery, which will go toward treating the ongoing addiction epidemic nationwide. 

“‘The addiction crisis facing our state and nation is a clear and present danger,’ Attorney General Hunter said. ‘Last year alone, out of the more than 3,000 Oklahomans admitted to the hospital for a non-fatal overdose, 80 percent involved a prescription opioid medication. Additionally, nearly 50 percent of Oklahomans who died from a drug overdose in 2018 were attributed to a pharmaceutical drug. Deploying the money from this settlement immediately allows us to decisively treat addiction illness and save lives.” 

Joseph F. Rice, Esq., of Motley Rice LLC, co-lead counsel and a member of the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee for the National Prescription Opiate Multidistrict Litigation, coordinated in the Northern District of Ohio, commented, “This is a significant step in the effort of the governmental entities around the country to address the opioid epidemic. Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family, by entering into this settlement, have taken a step forward to address what has been alleged as decades of misinformation, inappropriate marketing and efforts to grow the use of opioids, some of the most addictive narcotic drugs in our society.” 

The US Centers for Disease Control [CDC] has reported that from 1999-2017 almost 400,000 people died from an overdose involving any opioids, including prescription and illicit opioids. On the average, 130 Americans dies every day from an opioid overdose. 

Treatment of work related injuries and the resulting pain have produced an epidemic of opioid related addiction and fatalities. The CDC issued guidelines in 2016 for the prescription of opioids. New safety warnings were also added to all prescription opioid medications. State laws were enacted to add restrictions and limitation on opioid prescriptions. The NJ Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against a subsidiary of NJ based Johnson and Johnson seeking reimbursement for workers' compensation costs resulting from deceptive opioid advertising. At least 33 states have sued the opioid manufacturers. This is a significant action as Johnson and Johnson is a major player in New Jersey's economy. 

An unintended consequence of the restrictions placed on the prescription of opioids has been the inability of injured workers to obtain adequate pain relief. Suicide rates have increased, John Heubusch, a cancer patient, writing in the Washington Post stated, “ We have reached the point where doctors believe the next prescription they write for opioids to treat chronic pain might be their last. In my own case, I’ve had to undergo countless unsuccessful procedures and near superhuman efforts to be granted barely enough medication to try to live a normal life. Even those doctors with the courage to prescribe them for chronic pain sufferers are finding the hurdles established by federal and state reporting requirements so onerous that they are simply turning patients away.”…..”Opioid prescriptions have shrunk substantially, but Washington’s goal now is to cut their number by a further one-third. In a bitter irony, opioid overdose deaths continue to hover at an all-time high. Many chronic pain patients, denied prescriptions, are self-medicating on the street, using synthetic drugs such as fentanyl, 50 times more powerful than heroin. There, danger and overdose lurk around every corner. Even worse, some who have lost all hope for pain relief are choosing to end their pain by ending it all. The risk of suicide among patients with chronic pain is twice that of those without it." 

The Oklahoma settlement is an staring effort to the resolution of the opioid epidemic and the its consequences. Hopefully, this will bring those responsible for the opioid problem to the table to discuss sensible solutions so that injured workers’ can be provided medical care to relieve their pain without resulting addiction and death. This promising future would economically benefit employers, workers’ compensation insurance companies, and public entities that medically treat workplace injuries. All stakeholders involved in the workers’ compensation system hopefully can look to a more promising future.

See also:
New York Sues Sackler Family Members and Drug Distributors (NY Times 3/29/2019)
New York State 1st Amended Complaint (3/28/2019)

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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thomson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thomson-Reuters). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman  1.973.696.7900  jon@gelmans.com  has been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

Updated: 3/29/2019