Joe Rice helps negotiate a $260 million deal that heads off the first opioid bellwether trial

Drug distributors McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen and drugmaker Teva agreed Monday to pay $260 million to two Ohio counties, heading off the first trial in the national opioid litigation.

Joe Rice, a co-founder of Mount Pleasant-based Motley Rice, was one of the lead negotiators, the firm said. Rice is co-lead counsel and a member of the plaintiffs’ executive committee in the national litigation.

The trial of claims by Summit and Cuyahoga counties had been scheduled to start Monday. It would have been the first bellwether trial in the National Prescription Opiate Litigation, which combines roughly 2,600 lawsuits in the Northern District of Ohio, according to Motley Rice. Summit County is a Motley Rice client.

Under the deal, the three distributors will pay $215 million, the firm said. Teva said it will pay $20 million in cash over three years and provide the addiction treatment drug Suboxone, valued at $25 million at wholesale cost, over the same period.

Rice said the deal contains no admission of wrongdoing by the defendants, The Associated Press reported. The industry has denied wrongdoing, the AP noted, and Teva said in its announcement that the settlement does not include an admission of liability.

The settlement follows earlier deals with Johnson & Johnson, Mallinckrodt, Endo and Allergan. OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma avoided trial last month by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to the firm.

The counties did not reach a deal with Walgreens. Judge Dan Polster will set a new discovery and trial schedule for the pharmacy chain and the counties, Motley Rice said.

“The proposed settlement will make significant progress to abate the epidemic by providing resources for and applying funds directly to necessary opioid-recovery programs,” Rice and fellow co-lead counsel Paul J. Hanly Jr. and Paul T. Farrell Jr. said in a joint statement.

They said they represent more than 2,700 communities and will keep pushing for a nationwide deal. Rice made the same point to the National Law Journal, according to the firm.

“There should be a global settlement, but it’s got to be fair and it’s got to be now,” Rice said.

Motley Rice lawyer Don Migliori co-led the trial team, which spent the weeks before trial working around the clock in Cleveland, the firm said.