On March 1, 2023, a jury in Georgia sided with Williams & Connolly client Cardinal Health and other distributor defendants after a five-week first-of-its-kind trial weighing whether pharmaceutical distributors were liable for harm to individuals whose family members abused prescription drugs. Cardinal Health said the verdict “confirms that a law meant to apply to street dealers of illegal drugs cannot be used in a misguided attack on D.E.A.-registered wholesale distributors of F.D.A.-approved medications.” As Law360 reported, the “milestone” verdict represented the first trial of plaintiffs’ “threat[] to open a massive new front in opioid litigation despite multibillion-dollar settlements covering harms suffered by communities.”
Williams & Connolly partners Andrew Keyes and Steven Pyser were lead trial counsel on behalf of Cardinal Health. The trial team also included Lane Heard, Isia Jasiewicz, Danielle Sochaczevski, Loryn Helfmann, Kees Thompson, Liz Murphy, Lee Mullins, Alton Jackson, and Deepu Mathew.
The jury trial win has been widely covered by the media, including Law360, Reuters, and The New York Times.