28 Wisconsin counties sue prescription drug-makers to recover costs of fighting opioid epidemic

More than one-third of all Wisconsin counties sued several pharmaceutical drug-makers and physicians on Tuesday for fraudulent marketing of prescription painkillers that contributed to a nationwide public health crisis of opioid addiction and overdose deaths.

Separate lawsuits filed by 28 counties in the eastern federal district court in Wisconsin seek compensation for millions of dollars in costs of social services, law enforcement and emergency care in responding to the opioids epidemic in each of the counties. 

The companies created a public nuisance through a deceptive marketing campaign that misrepresents the safety of long-term opioid use, according to the lawsuits.

Those counties join a growing number of more than two dozen states, cities and counties around the U.S. that already have filed lawsuits attempting to hold pharmaceutical drug-makers and distributors accountable for bad faith business practices and misrepresentation in marketing of opioids.

Milwaukee County is in the process of hiring legal experts to prepare its own lawsuits against opioid-makers and distributors.

"County governments are bearing the brunt of the costs of this crisis," said Erin Dickinson of Crueger Dickinson LLC, lead counsel along with partner Charles Crueger in the lawsuits filed Tuesday. "Defendants must be held responsible for the devastating effects their actions have produced on counties across this country.”

Additional state counties likely will join the group in the next few weeks, Dickinson said.

Fond du Lac County Executive Allen Buechel discussed his personal experience with prescription opioids after neck surgery in 2014. After taking the powerful painkillers for a few weeks, he stopped and plunged into depression within one day, Buechel said.

"The first couple of days was horrible," he said. "No one told me it was a possibility."

"Our law enforcement, human services and judicial systems are being stressed in the effort to effectively respond to and manage the damage caused by opioid abuse and addiction," Alan Sleeter, chairman of the Oconto County Health and Human Services Board, said at a news conference Tuesday in West Bend announcing the lawsuits.

"There are babies that are born addicted and go into withdrawal," Sleeter said. He described the lawsuit as "one more tool to help us fight for our community."

“Communities throughout Wisconsin have been suffering the devastating effects of this opioid epidemic for years and we in Jefferson County believe it is time to take a stand," said Jim Schroeder, Jefferson County Board chairman. "Families have been destroyed and our hospitals and emergency services overwhelmed because of this opioid epidemic."

RELATED:Opioid lawsuits by Wisconsin counties follow years of Journal Sentinel investigations

RELATED:Heroin overdose deaths play no favorites as they engulf both Wisconsin political parties

RELATED:Gov. Scott Walker quickly signs bill to crack down on fentanyl

Scale of crisis

The national scale of the epidemic is well documented in the lawsuits filed by the 28 Wisconsin counties: Americans consume more than 80% of all opioids produced globally; in 2010, 20% of all U.S. doctors' visits resulted in a prescription for an opioid; by 2014, nearly 2 million Americans either abused or were dependent on opioids; more than 40 people die every day from overdoses involving prescription opioids and the death total stands at 200,000 or more since 1999.

In 2015 alone, more than 31,000 U.S. residents died from opioid overdoses, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The rate of opioid overdose deaths in Wisconsin nearly doubled, from 5.9 deaths per 100,000 residents in 2006 to 10.7 deaths per 100,000 residents in 2015, according to the state Department of Public Health Services. Opioid-related hospital visits in Wisconsin, which include both inpatient hospitalizations and emergency department visits, have doubled over the last decade. In 2015, there were nearly six hospital stays involving opioids for every death involving opioids.

There were more than 320 deaths from opioid overdoses in the group of 28 counties between 2013 and 2015, according to documents provided to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The grim tally in Wisconsin reached 1,824 deaths in the same three-year period.

In its lawsuit, Rock County reported 68 deaths in the three years. Washington County reported 49, with 30 in Fond du Lac County and 24 in Sauk County.

The 28 counties filing lawsuits Tuesday span the breadth of the state, from Sheboygan and Door counties on the east to Florence and Douglas on the north, and Pierce on the western border. Each of the lawsuits was filed by a team of lawyers from Crueger Dickinson LLC in Whitefish Bay and Simmons Hanly Conroy LLC in New York City.

The defendants in the lawsuit are: Purdue Pharma L.P.; Purdue Pharma Inc.; The Purdue Frederick Co. Inc.; Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc.; Cephalon Inc.; Johnson & Johnson; Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc.; Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc.; Janssen Pharmaceutica Inc.; Endo Health Solutions Inc.; Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc.; and physicians Perry Fine of Utah, Scott Fishman of California and Lynn Webster of Utah.

The physicians allegedly were "instrumental in promoting opioids for sale and distribution nationally," and in Wisconsin, according to the lawsuits.

Purdue Pharma is the maker of OxyContin and Dilaudid. Endo Pharmaceuticals is the maker of Percocet and Percodan. Janssen Pharmaceuticals makes a fentanyl skin patch. Cephalon makes a fentanyl lozenge. Fentanyl is a pain medication 50 times more powerful than heroin.

The Milwaukee County lawsuits will attempt to recover some of the millions of dollars the county has spent on programs and services aimed at curbing the opioid crisis locally, according to Corporation Counsel Margaret Daun.

The Milwaukee County medical examiner estimates there will be more than 325 opioid overdose deaths in the county this year. As of Oct. 27, the medical examiner had confirmed a total of 309 overdose deaths from all drugs including opioids and heroin.