Washington AG Bob Ferguson is correct to appeal the Sackler family's bankruptcy settlement.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

A settlement that requires a family — among those most culpable for an opioid drug epidemic in the United States that during more than two decades has resulted in more than a half-million deaths and drained hundreds of billions of dollars from local and state governments — to pay up to $4.5 billion is still quite the bargain.

Yes, $4.5 billion is a significant sum, but consider the other side of the scale in this agreement following a federal judge’s approval Wednesday of a bankruptcy settlement for the Sackler family, the now former owners of Purdue Pharma, the makers of OxyContin, the prescription opioid generically known as oxycodone.

The bankruptcy settlement — which includes an estimated payment between $4.3 billion and $4.5 billion to be dribbled out over the next nine years and the dissolution of Purdue Pharma — allows the Sackler family to avoid admitting responsibility for its part in pushing doctors to prescribe OxyContin, excuses them from future lawsuits over harm caused by the company’s opioids, and allows them to keep some $11 billion of opioid profit, assuring their ranking as one of the wealthiest families in the world.

-snip-

In a release, Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson asserted that the settlement was inadequate, and that a bankruptcy court doesn’t have the authority to prevent attorneys general from enforcing state law, including the decision to pursue the company’s owners, the Sackler family, for its illegal conduct.

“This order lets the Sacklers off the hook by granting them permanent immunity from lawsuits in exchange for a fraction of the profits they made from the opioid epidemic; and sends a message that billionaires operate by a different set of rules than everybody else,” Ferguson said in a statement. “This order is insulting to victims of the opioid epidemic who had no voice in these proceedings and must be appealed.”

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/editorial-purdue-opioid-settlement-far-short-of-justice/

[Tomconroy]

1. I think it will end up in the Supreme Court.