North Andover Joins Lawsuit Against Pharmaceutical Companies

NORTH ANDOVER, MA -- North Andover selectmen voted to join 70 other towns and cities in Massachusetts in filing a lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies that make prescription opioids, claiming that those companies knew risk of addiction for patients. Those companies, the towns and cities claim, pushed the costs of the opioid epidemic onto cities and towns like North Andover, which have been particularly hard hit by the opioid epidemic.

The lawsuit is being led by KP Law, the Boston-based law firm that represents more than a third of the municipalities in Massachusetts. Jonathan Silverstein of KP Law will file the lawsuit in federal court and seek to recover damages to reimburse towns for the increased costs, including higher insurance premiums, more fire and police personnel and treatment costs. KP Law and the other firms working on the case will only collect a fee if the lawsuit results in a verdict or settlement in favor of the towns.

Each town's lawsuit is filed individually, but the law firms are able to group the towns together when conducting pretrial work. Each town's lawsuit is modeled after the first filed against an opioid maker by a Massachusetts community last year. That lawsuit, filed by Greenfield in western Massachusetts, claimed the companies "aggressively pushed highly addictive, dangerous opioids, falsely representing to doctors that patients would only rarely succumb to drug addiction."

The lawsuit is separate from one that was recently filed by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healy on behalf of the Commonwealth and its municipalities.

In 2015, 2 million Americans had a substance abuse disorder involving prescription pain relievers, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine. People who who have been prescribed opiates by a doctor are 19 times more likely to try heroin, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The American Society of Addiction Medicine estimates that 23% of use heroin develop opioid addiction.
Selectmen voted 4-0 to join the lawsuit. Chairman David Mills was not at Tuesday's meeting.

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Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).