Supreme Court rejects multibillion-dollar Purdue Pharma opioid settlement that shielded Sackler family

Washington CNN —

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a controversial settlement that would have sent billions of dollars to treatment programs and victims of the nation’s opioid epidemic but also shielded the Sackler family from future lawsuits despite the fact that it made its fortune selling prescription opioids.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the opinion for a 5-4 majority.

“The Sacklers seek greater relief than a bankruptcy discharge normally affords, for they hope to extinguish even claims for wrongful death and fraud, and they seek to do so without putting anything close to all their assets on the table,” Gorsuch wrote. “Describe the relief the Sacklers seek how you will, nothing in the bankruptcy code contemplates (much less authorizes) it.”

People line up to get into the US Supreme Court on the day where decisions ares expected to be handed down, in Washington, DC, on June 26.

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Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a fellow conservative, said in dissent that the court’s decision will have a “devastating” impact on thousands of victims of the opioid epidemic.

“As a result, opioid victims are now deprived of the substantial monetary recovery that they long fought for and finally secured after years of litigation,” he wrote in the dissent, which was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Kavanaugh went on to implore Congress to amend US bankruptcy law to “fix the chaos that will now ensue” from the court’s ruling.

“The court’s decision will lead to too much harm for too many people for Congress to sit by idly without at least carefully studying the issue,” Kavanaugh wrote.

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