At the February 27th, 2018 Leon County Commission meeting, the Board will consider pursuing litigation against opioid manufacturers, distributors, and even pharmacies for claims regarding pain medications.
In general, the opioid litigation brings claims against those parties for their role in creating the current state of the opioid epidemic, including deceptive marketing to physicians and distributing opioids in violation of State and Federal law.
During 2017 Leon County was approached by a number of law firms or teams of firms seeking to represent Leon County in filing a lawsuit either in State or Federal Court.
Virtually all of the law firms have offered to provide representation to their clients on a contingency fee basis, with reimbursement for costs.
It is alleged that local governments, and in particular, county governments, across the country have spent and continue to spend taxpayer dollars on many facets of the opioid epidemic that could have been used for other public purposes.
In June of 2017 a bipartisan group of forty-one (41) State Attorneys General issued investigative subpoenas and document requests to manufactures and distributors of opioid drugs. This state coalition is seeking this information to determine how these companies marketed and distributed the products.
Three counties in Florida (Pasco, Osceola and Alachua) have selected law firms and have filed litigation utilizing these law firms, other counties (Hillsborough and Palm Beach) have issued Request for Proposals and are in the process of going through the RFP’s for purposes of selecting potential outside counsel for the opioid litigation.
The Board will decide whether to instruct the County Attorney’s Office to pursue the selection of a firm most appropriate for Leon County and pursue filing litigation against appropriate defendants; or issue an RFP for purposes of the Board selecting such outside counsel; or not pursue opioid litigation at the present time.
Leon County Commission to Consider Opioid Litigation added by Staff on
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Whatever investigation is pursued should include determining what “fees” or other gratuities doctors received from these manufacturers for each prescription they wrote and was filled.
As usual the blame is on business and not the individual. I had surgery a couple of years ago and took opioids for three weeks and then switched to Ibuprofen.
Leon County Agenda: Agenda Item #12
February 27, 2018
During 2017 Leon County was approached by a number of law firms or teams of firms seeking
to represent Leon County in filing a lawsuit either in State or Federal Court making similar
allegations with regard to the manufacturers and distributors. While there are many teams of
firms, the ones most prevalent are: Drake Martin Law Firm, LLC; Napoli Shkolnik, PLLC;
Motley Rice, LLC; Levin Papatonio; Robins Geller Rudman & Dowd, LLP; and a more Florida
based conglomerate that is composed of the firms of Schochor, Federico and Staton, P.A., the
Romano Law Group, Fonvielle Lewis Messer & McConnaughhay, and Barney Bishop
Consulting, LLC. Virtually all of the law firms have offered to provide representation to their
clients on a contingency fee basis, with reimbursement for costs. While we have seen some of
the retainer agreements from representation of other Counties in Florida, none have been
specifically proposed to Leon County at this time.
This is NOT a function of county commissioners and due to the present incompetence and corruption at the city and county no surprise here… another ludicrous action on the ludicrous and inaction on what they are supposed to be doing.
It would be interesting to know who are the usual suspects (now criminal suspects) behind this proposed costly action that is NOT a county level function. I think that is the real story.
They are unable to administer and manage the Joint Dispatch, Waste Pro, crime, CRA, etc… so, I guess when all else fails look for another angle that will enrich their cronies, that will drain the taxpayers dollars, and be funneled out to their special interests.
The culture of corruption is so prevalent that it morphs into inhumanity and citizens and the community suffer the consequences because of this nonsense. Yet one more example of the absurd by city and county officials. At the least it should be on the state level by the Attorney General.
It seems like a good idea…sigh…now if we only had an honest group of commissioners, mayor, and other upper leadership to implement it honestly and properly.
I know already…maybe because the FBI’s watching they might be honest with this opioid litigation and for the first time avoid any kick backs or deals with usual suspects…but can you really trust them with anything important?
Don’t you all kind of feel they already want to select Esquire Sean Pittman to go get this opioid litigation money for them? And then the honest oppressed citizens will have to deal with the mismanagement of any windfall opioid litigation moneys in the control of our usual suspects…sigh…