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At least seven Luzerne County municipalities have filed litigation against opioid manufacturers and wholesale distributors so far, in addition to the county, federal court records show.Kingston was the most recent plaintiff, filing its action Tuesday, preceded the week before by Wright Township and by Fairview Township in May.The county got the ball rolling with its action in November 2017, followed by Wilkes-Barre city and Plains Township in 2018 and Nanticoke and Wilkes-Barre Township earlier this year.What happens next?Attorneys expect the cases to take several years to wind their way through court.And while the local suits were all filed in the U.S. Middle District in Scranton, they are being processed through federal court in the Northern District of Ohio Eastern Division. The transfer to Ohio typically occurs within a month of filing, records show.Reason for transferThe U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation started moving the opioid civil actions to Ohio in December 2017, shortly after the county filed its suit. Dan A. Polster is the presiding judge.According to the panel&#8217;s initial transfer order:Plaintiffs in these actions are municipalities, counties and states all alleging one or both of the following:&#8226; Manufacturers overstated benefits and downplayed risks of their prescription opioid medications and aggressively marketed these drugs to physicians.&#8226; Distributors failed to monitor, detect, investigate, refuse and report suspicious orders of prescription opioids.Centralized processing of pretrial proceedings makes sense, the panel said, because the litigation involves common factual questions about the defendants&#8217; knowledge and actions regarding the alleged improper marketing and widespread diversion of the drugs into communities across the country.Discovery likely will be voluminous, and central processing will lower the risk of duplication and inconsistent or conflicting pretrial rulings and obligations, it said.&#8220;Although individualized factual issues may arise in each action, such issues do not &#8212; especially at this early stage of litigation &#8212; negate the efficiencies to be gained by centralization,&#8221; it said.Ohio also is a &#8220;geographically central and accessible forum&#8221; and has a &#8220;strong factual connection&#8221; to the issue because it has experienced the financial and overdose death impacts of the opioid epidemic, the panel said.Polster has experience managing complex, multidistrict litigation, it said.&#8220;We have no doubt that Judge Polster will steer this litigation on a prudent course,&#8221; the panel said.Specifics requiredTo process the growing number of cases in this &#8220;national prescription opiate litigation,&#8221; the Ohio court has assigned a case manager, law clerks and separate teams of attorneys to serve as liaisons with counsel for the plaintiffs and four categories of defendants &#8212; manufacturers, distributors, physicians and chain pharmacies.Numerous court orders also have been issued establishing procedures and protocols.For example, all plaintiffs will be required to submit detailed fact sheets quantifying the impact of the opioid epidemic on their jurisdictions, including budgets.The local municipal suits contained little, if any, specific description of the impact within their borders, focusing primarily on county and state overdose death and budgetary statistics.There were 169 overdose deaths in the county in 2018 &#8212; the fourth consecutive year for a new record high. The county had at least 36 overdose deaths as of April this year, but attempts to obtain a more current number from the county coroner&#8217;s office were unsuccessful in recent days.Nanticoke&#8217;s suit included a local reference from a media report in which one 2011 city high school graduate said many former classmates have died or become addicted or incarcerated due to opioids.&#8220;Nanticoke has not been spared this county-wide epidemic. Some people in Luzerne County call Nanticoke &#8216;Heroin City.&#8217;&#8221; the suit said.The local suits, all alleging racketeering, are going after many of the same entities, with lengthy lists of defendants.Luzerne County amended its complaint in March to add more defendants, according to the Ohio docket.At least some of the local suits point to a county opioid prescription rate higher than the state and national averages.County impactThe county administration already had estimated two departments &#8212; correctional services and Children and Youth &#8212; incurred more than $12 million in costs combined due to opioid addiction during the year its suit was filed.County Manager C. David Pedri predicted Friday the final tally for the county will be &#8220;staggering&#8221; due to the impact on other departments, including the drug and alcohol and district attorney&#8217;s offices.Luzerne County was one of the first in the state to file a claim, and county officials are confident they have a strong case, Pedri said.Similar to the others, the suit alleges the manufacturers pushed opioids to boost profits, falsely representing to doctors that patients would only rarely become addicted. The wholesale distributors intentionally breached their legal duties under federal and state law to monitor, detect, investigate, refuse and report suspicious orders, it said.&#8220;Opioids have been a terror on the people of this county as well as on the county budget,&#8221; Pedri said Friday.The team of lawyers representing the county is working on a contingency basis and will share 30 percent of any gross total recovery and receive nothing if the litigation is unsuccessful, said county Chief Solicitor Romilda Crocamo.An attorney, Pedri expects any potential award would be a &#8220;long way off&#8221; due to the number and complexity of the pending cases. County council ultimately would decide how any receipts are spent, but he said he will recommend depositing the money in a segregated account to fund substance use disorder treatment and other effects of the opioid epidemic.Attorney Bruce J. Phillips, of Wetzel, Phillips, Rodgers and Falcone in Plains Township, said this month his firm is among those handling the opioid suits for Wilkes-Barre and Wright townships and at least two more local municipalities he expects to be filing soon.Phillips said municipalities are working on compiling the statistics needed to provide the addenda documenting the effect of opioids within their borders.&#8220;It&#8217;s very much like the old tobacco cases countrywide. It looks like we will be several years out on this litigation,&#8221; Phillips said.<style>
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<div class="neCaption">Pedri </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/web1_Pedri1cmyk.jpeg.jpg</photo0><caption0>Pedri </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>At least 7 municipalities suing drug makers, distributors</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>By Jennifer Learn-Andesjandes@www.timesleader.com</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.</shirttailMeta></div>

List of local opioid suits growing