Some people who lost loved ones to opioids were shocked and sad, but they also said they were going to keep fighting after the Supreme Court on Thursday threw out a huge deal for drug crisis victims.
According to Jill Cichowicz, her twin brother Scott Zebrowski passed out in a California parking lot after taking what he thought was OxyContin in 2017 and later died of fentanyl overdose. “I felt like someone came up and punched me in the stomach,” she said.
In an interview on NBC News’ “Hallie Jackson Now,” Cichowicz, who started a charity called Two in the Stigma, said, “It kind of equated to the day that he died.”
Thursday, a 5-4 vote in the Supreme Court stopped Purdue Pharma from going through a huge bankruptcy reorganization. Purdue Pharma made and sold OxyContin, a prescription painkiller that was abused and caused people all over the country to become addicted.
The majority said that the bankruptcy court did not have the power to free the Sackler family from the civil claims of opioid victims.
But the deal also included $750 million for opioid crisis sufferers and billions of dollars for states to help stop the crisis and help people who were addicted.
Edward Neiger, an attorney who works as a co-managing partner at the law company ASK LLP and helps people who have been hurt by the opioid crisis, said that the setback was terrible. The opioid problem, he said, is “the biggest health care crisis of our time.”
“Today we’re grieving, we’re upset, we’re collecting our thoughts, and we’re going to regroup,” said Neiger. “But I can guarantee you that the victims, and I, are not going to give up.”
Marine Sgt. Joseph Scarpone died on June 13, 2015, just one month before his 26th birthday. He was Kay Scarpone’s son.
Following his return from the war in Afghanistan, Joseph Scarpone was diagnosed with serious PTSD. Kay Scarpone said that the drugs he was given by VA hospitals made him addicted and led him to use illegal drugs.
After taking something that was mixed with fentanyl without realizing it, he passed out and died.
“Absolutely devastated” is how Kay Scarpone, who now lives in New Hampshire and started the state version of the nonprofit Team Sharing, put it when she heard the high court’s decision.
Scarpone said that the deal with Purdue Pharma was the best deal she and the other people who backed it thought they could get for the states and victims. She was on a committee for victims whose job it was to find people who had been hurt by the drug problem.
Scarpone said, “We have to go back and tell all these people, ‘Sorry, it’s off the table.'” “It breaks my heart.” People were asked to trust us.
In a writing for the majority, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch said the Sacklers could have gone bankrupt, but instead they tried to use the company’s bankruptcy to settle their own civil claims.
The Sackler family, who owned Purdue Pharma, agreed to pay $6 billion as part of the original deal. This money could be used to settle opioid-related claims, but only if they wouldn’t be held responsible for any future cases. Since 2019, no one from the Sackler family has worked for the company.
The U.S. Trustee, which is part of the Justice Department and is in charge of bankruptcy cases, didn’t like the Purdue Pharma deal. So did eight states, Washington, D.C., and the city of Seattle.
According to the trustee, the Sacklers’ liability could lead to better voluntary settlements than those in the plan. The trustee also said that a win for the Sacklers “would provide a ‘roadmap for corporations and wealthy individuals to misuse the bankruptcy system’ in future cases,” Gorsuch wrote in the opinion.
Because of the Supreme Court’s decision, talks about a settlement with the Sacklers would have to start all over again, but the bankruptcy processes for Purdue Pharma would still go on.
After the decision was made, the Sackler family, Purdue Pharma, and the claimants’ lawyers all said they hoped a new deal could be made soon.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in May that opioids killed about 81,083 people in the U.S. last year. About 107,543 people died from drug overdoses that year, and most of them were caused by that type of drug.
For Scarpone, the decision meant “going back to the drawing board.” The wait for the money, which includes money for treatment, will cost lives, she said. She said, “The way forward is clear.”
“The next step is we’re going to fight,” she stated.
