My understanding of the reliance element (in the healthcare context) is not that a consumer must rely on the advice and actions of an intermediary to obtain the goods or services, it is your second instance where the physician is relying in part on allegedly fraudulent or misleading conduct by Purdue. There presently does not appear to be a consistent interpretation of this element, where some cases have gone all the way to trial and verdict and then not taken up on appeal to SCOTUS, and others where courts have dismissed claims outright (most commonly, it seems, for lack of standing). Civil RICO has gotten a lot of traction in the healthcare space in recent years.The claim that Meeker County is making in the District Court of Minnesota is that through deceptive and misleading advertising and marketing efforts directed at changing the public perception of narcotics, and to shore up belief that their product was safe for relatively low-grade pain relief and not addictive, Purdue was able to artificially boost sales and revenue, which effectively turned the pharmaceutical company into a criminal enterprise. The racket being a market for their goods that would not have existed, or at least not been nearly as expansive, as it might have been absent those efforts.
Hmm. This sounds like they are trying to make an argument similar to some of the tobacco litigation. A big difference, however, would be the fact that consumers do not have the ability to purchase opioids (at least, legally, that is). IIRC, there's a reliance element for civil RICO, and it strikes me that it's going to be difficult to make out that reliance element when there is a necessary intermediate (i.e., prescribing physicians) in between the public and the opioid makers. And if the argument is that the prescribing physicians were the ones relying upon the alleged false advertising, then there's an issue with damages because the prescribing physicians aren't the ones who were supposedly injured.
I'm not saying the case can't be made, but civil RICO is already a tough cause of action. More likely maybe that pharma tries to reach a global settlement, and I bet settlement is the goal of the litigation. Dangle a couple hundred billion in front of state AGs, and I bet they jump at it.
I don't know. But there are around two dozen state attorneys general who have so far refused to agree to the proposed terms of the Purdue BK because there are, as near as can be told, no real consequences for the Sackler family.
I love feeding and watching the birds.
