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Appeals Court Urged to Nix Opioid Negotiation Class

February 27, 2020

The Attorneys General of a dozen states and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have urged a federal appeals court to dissolve the novel “negotiating class” in the multidistrict opioid litigation, arguing that Judge Dan Polster of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio lacked the legal authority to create it.

Polster certified the class last September as a voluntary system for more than 2,000 local governments to negotiate settlements with defendants in the suit.

In a friend-of-court brief, the AGs argued that Polster “invaded state sovereignty” when he certified the class and if it reached a settlement, the class would be “diverting finite opioid settlement funds to political subdivisions and away from the states.”

Revoking the negotiating class would not be the first time the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals restricted Polster’s approach to the case. The court previously placed a partial stay on Polster’s order for 14 years of nationwide opioid dispensing data while it considers a petition by pharmacies challenging Polster’s handling of the case.

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