Mother of overdose victim devastated by Supreme Court's rejection of Purdue Pharma settlement
Settlement would have sent tens of millions of dollars to New Hampshire for treatment centers
Settlement would have sent tens of millions of dollars to New Hampshire for treatment centers
Settlement would have sent tens of millions of dollars to New Hampshire for treatment centers
A New Hampshire woman said Thursday she was devasted by a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a settlement that would have given billions of dollars to opioid treatment centers and those impacted by the epidemic.
The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 vote to reject the settlement with Purdue Pharma that would have forced the Sackler family, which owns the company, to pay $6 billion to recovery centers and victim families across the country.
Kay Scarpone, of Kingston, said she lost her son in 2015 to an opioid overdose.
"My son was a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps," she said. "He fought for a year in the war in Afghanistan, and he came home to American soil and died from an overdose because of PTSD."
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Scarpone said she was shaken by the court's decision to reject the settlement.
"It's not fair," she said. "We’ll keep fighting, though. We won't give up."
The justices rejected the agreement because the Sackler family would be protected from any civil lawsuits over oxycontin, which was produced and promoted by Purdue Pharma.
Under the settlement, New Hampshire would have received $46 million. Scarpone said the settlement was the best plan they could get from the Sackler family, and now, lawyers will try to make a new plan.
"That settlement money was going to help so many victims, and it was going to help abate the crisis, and we worked so hard just to have it taken away from us," Scarpone said.
Scarpone was one of 20 members of the victims' council that spoke to the Supreme Court and the Sackler family as part of the settlement process.
"We're always going to go back to the drawing board and start over, and if it takes another four years, then so be it."
Edward Neiger, the attorney representing Scarpone and other victims, said the ruling from the court will prevent thousands of families from getting the settlement they deserve from the Sackler family.
"Right now, they are not slated to get a single penny," Neiger said. "The 750 million they were supposed to get, the supreme court just blew that up."
In a statement, Purdue Pharma called the news "heart-crushing."
"The decision does nothing to deter us from the twin goals of using settlement dollars for opioid abatement and turning the company into an engine for good," the company said.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in 2022, more than 81,000 Americans died from an opioid overdose, more than four times the amount since this data started being recorded in 1999.