Columbus, OH – On Thursday, The Buckeye Institute filed its amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in National Prescription Opiate Litigation, calling on the court to stop the government from using litigation as a means to fund public programs for which the government itself is responsible.

“The opioid epidemic is a tragedy, and it is appropriate, even necessary, for the courts to hold those who committed illegal acts accountable. However, governments suing pharmacies for filling lawful doctors’ prescriptions is not the solution, and declaring the work of pharmacists a ‘public nuisance’—as the lower court did—is contrary to established law,” said Jay R. Carson, senior litigator at The Buckeye Institute. “While the lower court’s ruling certainly made for good headlines, awarding half a billion dollars in damages violates the law and creates an unhealthy incentive for governments to address public policy problems by using litigation to tap into the deep pockets of politically unpopular industries.”

In its brief, The Buckeye Institute demonstrates that “Regardless of whether the payments are couched in terms of equitable remediation, government actors will treat the payments as money damages to be spent however they see fit. And regardless of the gravity of the public policy problem at issue, this amounts to taxation by litigation.”

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UPDATE: On January 31, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit vacated the district court’s judgment, dissolved the injunction, and remanded the cases back to the district courts for further proceedings consistent with the Ohio Supreme Court’s answer to the Sixth Circuit’s certified question.