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The lengthy federal court proceedings to blame drug companies for the opioid crisis in the United States presents a new complication: how do we deal with claims for compensation for thousands of babies born to drug addicts?
The lawyers representing the children and their guardians want their claims to be dissociated from the federal case in Cleveland involving hundreds of local governments and other entities such as hospitals. They will discuss it Thursday before a federal judicial committee in New York.
Babies, unlike governments and businesses, have been directly hurt by the actions of drug makers and are entitled to their own payments, said Scott Bickford, one of the leading advocates of children and their guardians.
He added that initial stays at the hospital for babies born to an opioid-dependent mother can cost between $ 200,000 and $ 250,000 more than those of other children born without complications.
"Then you have to solve their developmental and learning problems," Bickford said. "Many of them have organ problems, many of them have problems that we do not even know."
Manufacturers and drug distributors oppose the creation of a new structure for the lawsuits against children.
The separation of business "would open the door to the inconsistency and inefficiency that coordinated procedures are designed to avoid," the manufacturers said in a legal deposit.
The other plaintiffs in the opioid omnibus litigation have not objected officially, but some are reluctant to separate cases involving children. Paul Farrell Jr., one of the leading local government lawyers, said he was trying to get help for children born with opioid addiction and to receive care prenatals funded by the drug industry.
He added that all the plaintiffs shared a common goal: to hold drug manufacturers responsible for the crisis. Unless this happens, he said, no one will receive the payments they are looking for.
"You only have to shoot the pig once," he says.
The dispute offers a window into the complexity of the Cleveland litigation, the primary way to reach a potential nationwide resolution on the opioid crisis.
Opioids, including prescription painkillers, heroin, and synthetic substances, including fentanyl, killed nearly 48,000 Americans last year, according to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The cost of treatment, the provision of an antidote for overdose, placement in foster care, prison stays, ambulance races and treatment of the growing homelessness crisis have added to costs to governments and taxpayers. Studies have shown that opioid addiction has also impoverished the workforce, harming the economy.
More than 1,400 plaintiffs had their federal cases consolidated under one judge. They include county and local governments, hospitals, unions, Native American tribes and individuals. Hundreds of others have filed lawsuits in state courts.
The federal judge, Judge Dan Polster, based in Cleveland, pushed the parties to reach an agreement.
The parties negotiate regularly behind closed doors. The drug industry argues that its responsibility should not be engaged because its products are approved by the federal government and prescribed by doctors and that people who overdose often do so with illicit drugs.
The lawyers representing the children and their guardians declare that there is a precedent for their request to go it alone, after Polster granted the tribes a separate legal path for their claims. In August, the judge denied the same status for cases brought on behalf of babies.
This decision prompted the lawyers to ask the Judicial Panel responsible for disputes involving multiple districts to submit their cases to another judge in West Virginia or in Illinois. The federal panel in New York will decide whether to respond to this request.
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