Perry Village Hopes to Profit from Settling Opioid Litigation – Information-Herald

Perry Village has chosen to join the Ohio community group seeking parts of a legal settlement involving three major opioid distributors.

At its meeting on August 12, the village council unanimously voted for the municipal government to participate in the OneOhio settlement.

Legislators took action after being briefed on the settlement by village attorney James O’Leary.

“The key is that we have to choose part of that comparison,” said O’Leary.

States and communities across the country are given the chance to receive revenue from an extensive legal settlement recently reached by a coalition of private attorneys with three distributors of opioid pain relievers.

The companies – Cardinal Health, McKesson, and AmeriSource Bergen – recently agreed to resolve a variety of legal disputes through financial payments.

These traders were accused of lax controls that made it possible to divert huge amounts of addictive opioid pain relievers into illegal channels, according to a Reuters.com story. This activity allegedly took place during a period when opioid addiction and overdose deaths were skyrocketing.

As part of the settlement, the three companies have agreed to jointly provide up to $ 21 billion to thousands of communities across the United States over 18 years.

However, to require companies to pay in full, the agreement requires the support of at least 48 states, 98 percent of the litigating local governments, and 97 percent of the jurisdictions that have yet to sue.

O’Leary said the Ohio attorney general had given counties and parishes until Aug. 20 to join the settlement.

“Maybe we won’t get anything or we will get something,” the lawyer told the legislators and administrators of the village. “But if I don’t get the council’s approval to fill out the paperwork and send it to the Ohio District Attorney, we’re not going to get anything.”

The money from the settlement will be used for such purposes as treating opioid addiction and preventing the misuse of the potentially deadly drug.

The OneOhio agreement includes a letter of intent aimed at creating an effective means of distributing potential settlement funds to the state and local communities. Steps would also be taken to promote productive and meaningful use of funds to contain the opioid epidemic across Ohio.