Victims of the opioid crisis are calling on a bankruptcy judge to lift a protective shield that is keeping them from suing members of the Sackler family who own Purdue Pharma LP, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The demand comes as Purdue, after a year in bankruptcy, prepares to file a chapter 11 plan that will offer billions of dollars to states, tribes and others with claims against the company and its owners over allegedly improper marketing of OxyContin, a powerful opioid. Terms of the chapter 11 plan are being worked on behind closed doors and are slated to include provisions that permanently immunize the Sacklers from lawsuits, according to papers filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., by a coalition of opioid victims known as the accountability committee. Purdue’s September 2019 bankruptcy filing stopped action against the drugmaker in thousands of lawsuits over its marketing of OxyContin, blamed for a significant portion of the epidemic of addiction. Hundreds of the cases also name as defendants some members of the Sackler family. Unlike Purdue, the Sackler defendants didn’t file for bankruptcy protection. Still, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains ordered a stay of legal challenges against Purdue’s owners. Purdue, based in Stamford, Conn., wants to extend that stay until March. The personal-injury claimants say the Sackler defendants need to face a public reckoning sooner. The Sackler defendants have denied any blame for the alleged improper sales of OxyContin, though they have offered to add $3 billion in cash to a proposed Purdue settlement. The drugmaker and about half the states that have sued have agreed to that deal, but other states, including New York, have turned it down.
