drug lawsuits

Four of the biggest American health companies have tentatively agreed to pay $26 billion to settle their opioid liability. Tax breaks could allow them to claw back $4 billion.

McKinsey is the latest major American corporation to face legal, financial and public relations peril stemming from its role in the nation's deadly opioid epidemic.

The controversial deal hashed out between the Department of Justice and the maker of Oxycontin provides hundreds of millions of dollars of relief for communities hit hard by the opioid epidemic.

A federal judge this week denied a request by pharmacy chains to throw out a lawsuit over the opioid crisis brought by Lake and Trumbull counties. U.S. District Judge Dan Polster’s Thursday ruling allows the two counties to move ahead with preparations for a May 2021 trial in federal court, to be held in Cleveland.

Dozens of cities and 73 of Ohio’s 88 counties have signed on to a statewide opioid plan for potential settlements with drug companies, Gov. Mike DeWine’s office announced Wednesday. The OneOhio plan would direct 30 percent of total settlement dollars to local governments. A statewide foundation would handle 55 percent and the remaining 15 would go to the attorney general’s office. The foundation’s board would include members representing state officials and local jurisdictions.

Northeast Ohio local governments are weighing whether to join Attorney General Dave Yost’s One Ohio plan for dividing state opioid settlement money from drug companies. The proposal would create a statewide foundation, run by both state and local appointees, to distribute 55 percent of any settlement dollars. Another 30 percent would go directly to local governments. The attorney general’s office would receive 15 percent.

Cuyahoga County Council took a deeper look Monday into the $23 million plan to fund drug treatment, a new drug court, a jail diversion center and other with the first wave of money paid out by drug companies to settle lawsuits over the opioid crisis.

Ohio’s governor, attorney general and dozens of local governments are getting close to a final deal on how to split up a potentially massive settlement…

Gov. Mike DeWine says he is cautiously satisfied with the terms of a potential massive settlement against drug companies and distributors who have been…

Michele Rout is an assistant law director in the city of Chillicothe, one of the places in Ohio hardest hit by the opioid epidemic. But her experience with the human toll of the crisis goes beyond the courtroom. Rout and her husband are raising two grandchildren who were exposed to opioids before birth and experienced symptoms of withdrawal afterward — a condition known as neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS).