Judge Finds Opioid Distributor in Contempt as Part of Lawsuit Brought by Washington State

An opioid distributor sued by the state of Washington last year in connection with the opioid epidemic has been found in contempt of court.

King County Superior Court Judge Marshall Ferguson ordered Tuesday that AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp. provide prepared witnesses and that it produce unredacted records from its board for 2006 through 2018.

An earlier court order in the case required the company to "present prepared representatives" for deposition, the court wrote. The judge has also ordered the company to pay the state for what it cost to bring the motion for contempt.

"AmerisourceBergen spent months delaying and attempting to obstruct our investigation," Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a news release. "Their misconduct failed. Stall tactics won't stop us from uncovering and exposing their unlawful conduct that devastated Washington families."

The release said Ferguson's lawsuit "asserts that McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc. and AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp. made billions of dollars feeding the opioid epidemic, shipping huge amounts of oxycodone, fentanyl, hydrocodone and other prescription opioids into the state even when they knew or should have known those drugs were likely to end up in the hands of drug dealers and addicts."

The Attorney General's Office said the three companies supply most of the opioids that come into Washington state and that more than 8,000 people in Washington died from opioid overdoses between 2006 and 2017.

The lawsuit accuses the companies of violating the state's Consumer Protection Act. It seeks civil penalties and damages, and profits the companies made from their "illegal conduct."

There were more prescriptions than people in 16 counties in Washington in 2008, according to the state.

"Billions of prescription opioid pills have been pumped into Washington, including 112 million daily doses of prescription opioids in 2011 alone — enough for a 16-day supply for every woman, man, and child in the state," the lawsuit said.

The state's motion for contempt in the case argued: "Where it did belatedly produce Board materials, ABDC redacted large portions of them for 'relevance,'" and that "ABDC utterly failed to prepare," one of its representatives for questioning.

That person was supposed to answer questions about pricing, inventory and company finances, but the senior vice president of market economics the company provided wasn't able to do so, the state argued.

"The State expended significant time and money to prepare for the deposition; incurred costs of a court reporter, videographer, and technician to handle exhibits for a remote video deposition; prepared and shipped exhibits; and incurred the expense and attorney time of attendance," the motion said. "The State did so in expectation of knowledgeable testimony, not for meaningless questioning of an unprepared witness."

The company disputed that the testimony was inadequate, and argued in one of it filings in the case that: "Consistent with the reality that discovery is a process, ABDC was — and remains — willing to fairly address the State's dissatisfaction with the single witness about whom the State has complained. ... ABDC has been diligent, cooperative, and forthright throughout discovery."

It went on to say: "ABDC has produced an enormous volume of documents regarding its opioid-distribution practices nationwide, and transcripts from dozens of prior depositions on these topics. ABDC also produced a large volume of information regarding Washington customers, including customer files from multiple data sources, records on every order of prescription opioids it shipped in Washington, and information from its internal systems specifically dedicated to monitoring orders of controlled substances in Washington and elsewhere."

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