Can Courts Solve a Public Health Crisis? From State Court, to Multidistrict Litigation, to Bankruptcy in Opioids and Beyond. Abstract:
In complex tort cases ranging from the opioid litigation, to talcum powder, to even the Boy Scouts, litigants are increasingly finding our traditional litigation system inadequate in the elusive quest for global resolution of sprawling litigation. As a response, they are turning to unorthodox venues for such cases: first federal multidistrict litigation and, most recently, bankruptcy court. The U.S. Supreme Court in December is set to take up some questions related to the use of bankruptcy in the opioid cases against Purdue Pharma; but the practice is far more widespread, and it raises questions about the strengths and weaknesses of the traditional system and what is lost and gained when lawyers engineer around it. Underlying it all is the question of why plaintiffs turn to the court system in the first place to address an intractable public health crisis. What do courts offer, and where are they limited? Does it matter which courthouse we are in?
Gluck is Alfred M. Rankin Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy, Yale Law School, and Professor of Medicine (General Medicine) and Affiliated Faculty, Program in Addiction Medicine, Yale School of Medicine.