Albertsons weighs appeal of $900 million opioid verdict. The verdict, reported as the largest in Washington state history, was issued Thursday in King County Superior Court after the retailer was found to have contributed to the opioid epidemic.
The state argued that Albertsons unlawfully dispensed opioid prescriptions for years without adequately investigating and documenting the resolutions of “red flag” warnings that the drugs were potentially being misused.
In response, the company issued a statement expressing disappointment with the ruling and respectfully disagrees with its conclusions. It added that senior officials are reviewing the decision closely and will consider all available options, including appeal.
Opioid Prescription Practices
The Washington attorney general’s office reported that Albertsons pharmacies filled red-flagged opioid prescriptions more than 6.5 million times without documenting efforts to ensure that they were written for legitimate medical purposes.
According to the AG’s office, the chain discouraged its pharmacists from identifying problematic over-prescribers and did little to review its own data or industry data to identify them. This approach, the office argued, left many high-risk prescriptions unchecked.
Read Also: Teamsters Strike New Hampshire Warehouse Over Pensions
In several instances, the retailer did not permit pharmacists to refuse prescriptions issued by doctors operating “pill mills,” even though competing pharmacy chains had instituted blocks against those prescribers. The investigation also uncovered theft as an additional concern within the pharmacy network.
Consequences and Settlements
Albertsons recently agreed to a settlement of $773.8 million to resolve a separate multi-state opioid lawsuit. The financial burden of that agreement contributed to a fourth-quarter loss of $480.8 million for the company.
In a related development, CVS disclosed a settlement of $315 million to address its own involvement in opioid-related claims. Both settlements illustrate the mounting legal pressures facing major pharmacy operators.
Retailers collectively have pledged to pay billions of dollars in settlements tied to the opioid crisis, a public health emergency that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says claimed approximately 806,000 lives between 1999 and 2023. These figures highlight the extensive human and financial toll of the epidemic.