Ohio Supreme Court sides with pharmacies in appeal of $650 million opioid judgment

abcnews.go.com:

The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that Ohio's product liability law prohibits counties from bringing public-nuisance claims against national pharmaceutical chains as they did as part of national opioid litigation

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the state's product liability law prohibits counties from bringing public nuisance claims against national pharmaceutical chains as they did as part of national opioid litigation, a decision that could overturn a $650 million judgment against the pharmacies.

An attorney for the counties called the decision “devastating.”

Justices were largely unanimous in their interpretation of an arcane disagreement over the state law, which had emerged in a lawsuit brought by Lake and Trumbull counties outside Cleveland against CVS, Walgreens and Walmart.

The counties won their initial lawsuit — and were awarded $650 million in damages by a federal judge in 2022 — but the pharmacies had disputed the court's reading of the Ohio Product Liability Act, which they said protected them from such sanctions.

In an opinion written by Justice Joseph Deters, the court found that Ohio state lawmakers intended the law to prevent “all common law product liability causes of action" — even if they don't seek compensatory damages but merely “equitable relief” for the communities.

“The plain language of the OPLA abrogates product-liability claims, including product-related public-nuisance claims seeking equitable relief,” he wrote. “We are constrained to interpret the statute as written, not according to our own personal policy preferences.”

Two of the Republican-dominated court's Democratic justices disagreed on that one point, while concurring on the rest of the judgment.

“Any award