State of Alaska vs. Purdue Pharma, Attorney Resignations, Evolution Of A Blog Post

[NOTE: My original title was, "Might Dunleavy's Purging of Alaska State Attorneys Be Prelude To Drop Lawsuits Against Supporters?"   This blog post starts with a chance discovery of DocumentCloud.  A quick search for Alaska came up with a few pages from a state lawsuit against Purdue Pharma.  Then I connected this case with another event - Dunleavy's call for exempt employee resignations. I get more info about the original discovery.  Then more information from someone involved, and finally conclude that while the original idea might be valid, theoretically, in this particular case, it's probably not.  I'll let you go through this process with me.  It's sort of like the scientific process - you make a hypothesis, then do the research, then conclude.  In this case the hypothesis isn't confirmed.  But the info collected is interesting.  I'll start with the original draft of the postand comment on it in [brackets]. The original draft was written Dec. 17. I'm now calling that PART I.  Then PART II is my follow up today.]


[PART I:]  This is just a thought, but worth pursuing.  [In hindsight, could have been titled "the hypothesis"]

The incoming Dunleavy administration has called for the resignation of all exempt employees - including those in the Department of Law.  Many of these attorneys, one would assume, are in the middle of ongoing lawsuits.  It would be useful to get a list of the current ongoing lawsuits the State of Alaska has filed, so we can see what happens to them under the Dunleavy administration.

For instance, I serendipitously came across a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma [makers of Oxycontin] claiming their misleading marketing and other actions helped lead to, or at least exacerbate, the opioid crisis in Alaska.  [This was the original discovery - Alaska's lawsuit against Purdue Pharma - which is something everyone should know about.]

It would be useful to check out whether Purdue, and other organizations being sued by Alaska,  had any role in Outside, campaign funds that supported Dunleavy.  This will probably be tricky since the point of some of those funds is to keep the donors anonymous.

DocumentCloud search for 'Alaska' came up with the state's complaint against Purdue.  Here's a summary of the complaints - they are explained in more detail in the document.  [It was the discovery of DocumentCloud that led to my discovering the Purdue Pharma case.]

As alleged in this Complaint, Purdue engaged in false representation and concealment of material facts about the use of opioids to treat chronic pain. 

"Purdue knew, deliberately ignored, or recklessly disregarded, that:

1. its statements about the risks and benefits of opioids to treat chronic pain were false or misleading;
2. it failed to correct prior misrepresentations and omissions about the risks and benefits of opioids
3. its statements made to promote the use of opioids to treat chronic pain omitted or concealed material facts; and
4. for many patients the pain relief of "12-hour" OxyContin dosing lasts well short of 12 hours; and
5. there is no evidence to support statements that abuse-deterrent formulations of Purdue's opioids make the drugs less likely to be abused or diverted or less addictive; and
6. it lacked the commitment it professed to reducing or deterring abuse and to cooperating with law enforcement, as evidenced by its failure to report suspicious prescribers as required by law and its misrepresentations regarding the abuse-deterrent properties of is opioids."

(This complaint is dated October 30, 2017.  A Department of Law Press Release dated July 13, 2018 links to a judge's order that denies the defendant's attempts to dismiss most of the charges.  So I'm assuming this case is on-going. ) [I confirm this later.]

How many other cases are there like this that some large corporation might like to have dropped?

Am I being alarmist here?  I don't have any evidence that any wrong doing has taken place or will in Alaska regarding well funded defendants.  However, defendants have made large contributions to defeat judges in states with partisan judgeships.

It's not hard to imagine a wealthy defendant making contributions anonymously to a PAC that would support a gubernatorial candidate who could end a state's lawsuit.  And given that our new governor has asked for the resignations of all exempt employees - which includes a lot of prosecutors - I don't think it's unreasonable to raise this question.

Given the high visibility of the opioid crisis in Alaska, dropping this case would probably get a lot of blowback.  So I just want to make sure people are paying attention to this case and others that potentially could be dropped under Dunleavy.

An article in the Knox News about Tennessee's lawsuit against Purdue mentions Alaska's lawsuit several times.

PART II  Dec 19, 2018  I'm abandoning the [brackets] since this is the new update.

I talked to an Alaska state attorney yesterday.  Given the headlines about the governor asking for resignations, I wasn't sure if the email addresses would still be valid.  But I got an email back quickly, which told me that the Purdue Pharma case was, indeed, still ongoing.  The judge had set a March 23, 2020 trial date.

What about the resignations of the attorneys?
The line attorneys had been assured by the new Attorney General that their jobs are safe.  Only management are on the line.

What about a list of all the cases?
There are so many cases it would be hard to list.  But that includes many that are just in the investigatory stage - that can't be made public at this point - plus there are different departments pursuing different cases.  Actual, ongoing cases?  Not so many.

And the Purdue Pharma case?
This is such a high profile case, it would be hard to shut down.  There are cases all over the country on this.  Essentially three major groups.

1. Litigating states- almost 30 states who have filed suit in their own state courts and who are either litigating through their AG or through outside counsel such as Motley Rice (AK and 7 other states) or another firm
2. MDL- Multi district litigation in Cleveland OH, multiple plaintiffs mostly cities, counties and tribes although one or two states have submitted themselves to the federal courts jurisdiction
3. Multistate investigation- includes some litigating states (but not AK) and the remaining states that have not filed suit yet

There's a Reuters article that gives an overview of the lawsuits around the country over Oxytocin.  

Another Reason Purdue Pharma (and other cases) won't be dropped - money

Cases like these bring revenue to the state.  When I asked for a ballpark, my contact wouldn't make a guess.  But when I asked "Say $5 million?"  my contact said more than that and likened this case to the the tobacco lawsuits which are still bringing in revenue, even as cigaret sales have declined.

My Hypothesis Not Confirmed

Did Purdue Pharma or the Sackler family that privately owns Purdue make contributions to the Dunleavy campaign in order to get the new governor to drop this case?
I couldn't find anything about Purdue Pharma in the Alaska Public Offices Commission searches (though I don't use them that often so I might have missed something.)
Open Secrets reports show fairly low expenditures by Purdue Pharma and nothing Alaska related.   Nor could I find anything of interest for members of the Sackler family who privately own Purdue Pharma.  That doesn't mean there's nothing there, but it would take more sophisticated sleuthing.  And given the number of suits around the country against Purdue Pharma, Alaska's probably has to be one of the smaller ones, simply because of our low population.
And the report from the state attorney I talked to indicates the attorneys have gotten no reason to believe the case won't continue, and the potential revenue to be gained is a good reason to continue.

What's next?

It probably wouldn't hurt to monitor state law suits against corporations.  People should know what the state is doing, especially, in this case where the state stands to recoup some of the costs of dealing with the opioid crisis.

I didn't know anything about the suit against Purdue Pharma and so I will do another post on this topic.  For those who can't wait, I suggest you read this (long, but chilling) New Yorker article - The Family That Built An Empire of Pain - about the Sackler family who own Purdue Pharma and how this company contributed to the current opioid crisis because of how profitable it is.

I'd note that the Anchorage Daily News has reported on this case:

October 2017 - Alaska sues drugmaker Purdue Pharma, saying its OxyContin stoked opioid crisis
December 2017 - Alaska hires Outside law firm to investigate potential opioid lawsuit
July 2018 - Judge allows Alaska’s lawsuit against opioid manufacturer to proceed

And another case where five Alaska Native tribes joined a nationwide suit by Native American tribes against opioid makers and sellers:
November 2018  Alaska Native tribes sue drug companies over cost of opioid epidemic

And they've republished Washington Post stories on suits against Purdue Pharma, like this one on the Ohio case I mentioned above in this post:

April 7, 2018 An epic battle over the opioid crisis moves to an Ohio courtroom

And this one:

Sept 7, 2018  Man who made billions from OxyContin is pushing drug to wean addicts off opioids