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By Emily Keller

opioid lawsuit

City looking at joining class action lawsuit against opioid manufacturers

May 13, 2020 | 1:17 PM

A City committee recommended on Tuesday that Council participate in a class action lawsuit against opioid manufacturers.

If approved, the City of Grande Prairie would be the representative Plaintiff in the opioid crisis lawsuit with the Guardian Law Group.

Mayor Bill Given says he believes the City joining the lawsuit would set a good precedent.

“I think there’s a recognition across North America that the manufacturers of opioids took deliberate actions that led to these negative consequences out in communities. We’ve seen in the United States, many communities successfully pursue similar cases, and here in Canada, the Province of British Columbia launched a similar action in 2018 (and) last fall the Province of Alberta announced that they would be joining that class action lawsuit.”

He says the impact the opioid crisis has had on municipalities may be overlooked.

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“Those are positive and appropriate steps, but they do not recognize the harm caused to municipalities and on municipal taxpayers in having to respond, and that’s where this action will fill that gap.”

The lawsuit claims that manufacturers falsely and fraudulently marketed opioids as safe and non-addictive, failed to properly perform long-term studies on the effects of the drugs, and created a false perception of safety and efficacy of opioids in the medical community.

It also claims that distributors of the opioids failed to report suspicious orders, which are required by law, and dispensed, supplied and sold prescription opioids without proper safeguards.

Mayor Given says if approved and the lawsuit is dissolved in a positive way for municipalities, then they would be getting financial restitutions.

“This would allow us to number one; recoup the costs of taxpayers where we’ve been involved in dividing additional supports over the last number of years, and potentially, use any recovered costs to be able to help make improvements in the community to address this issue which continues on to this day.”

In 2019, Grande Prairie saw the highest rate of fentanyl related deaths in the province among Alberta’s major municipalities. The latest Alberta Opioid Response Surveillance Report from Alberta Health showed that the city had 24 people die from an apparent opioid overdose related to fentanyl in 2019, setting the rate at 32.2 per 100,000 people. That is nearly double Lethbridge’s fatality rate, which was the second highest in Alberta last year at 16.3

Between 2006 and 2011, Canada saw the dispensing rate for high-dose opioid formulations, including morphine, hydromorphone, oxycodone and fentanyl increase 23 per cent. More than $4 billion of prescription opioids were sold between 2010 and 2017 in the country.

Guardian Law Group estimates that based on partial settlements secured on behalf of two Ohio counties for $260 Million USD, and if the lawsuit is successful and Grande Prairie received the same amounts per capita, it could be awarded in the area of $11.3 million CAD.