For the second week in a row, considering participation in pending opioid litigation was the prominent topic at the St. Francois County Commission meeting held Tuesday morning at the courthouse annex in Farmington.
Last week, the commission distributed copies of a resolution declaring that opioid abuse is a public nuisance and a serious health and safety crisis in St. Francois County.
The resolution explained that if passed, the county would give authorization to Attorney John Garvey of the law firm of Cary Danis and Lowe of St Louis, Marler Schrum Law Firm of Farmington, and Attorney Ann Callis of the Holloran Law Firm of St. Louis to pursue legal action against opioid manufacturers and distributors.
Due to contentious discussion that took place last week regarding how any settlement money would be distributed, the commission tabled action on the resolution until this week's meeting.
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Attorney Callis returned to Tuesday’s meeting to answer any further questions on how the litigation would be handled.
“I think Jack [Garvey] gave a good presentation on what the lawsuit would entail,” she said. “He does represent 20-plus Missouri counties. He also cleared up that the fee would be 20 percent of the net after costs, because he said that’s what he presented and he’s going to stick to his word.”
Callis was impressed with the way that the county had assembled a group of citizens to find solutions to the opioid crisis and direct any potential funds from a settlement.
“I found out beforehand that you have a pretty good infrastructure in place already as to if and when there is a settlement, how those proceeds will be distributed throughout this county and the needs of this county,” she said. “You do have — and I did some research before the last meeting — a very horrific opioid epidemic in St. Francois County. I’ve seen this over and over again throughout the counties I have traveled to in Missouri and Illinois.”
Presiding Commissioner Harold Gallaher noted that the county’s legal distribution was the highest of any of the counties in the southeast part of the state.
Callis replied, “It’s very high. I know it was higher than the actual prescriptions. The CDC will do those stats based yearly on prescription rate, and they monitor that per 100 people and I know that it’s been higher than the people in the county, so that’s extraordinarily high.”
Gallaher said, “Let’s assume there’s a settlement, and it’s among these 20-plus counties. Then the distribution of that will be based on the cost that the counties incurred individually, and that would be a percentage, basically?”
Callis answered, “The model is still in creation. This lawsuit’s been going on for a long time. As I said before, nothing happens in a vacuum, this is a national problem, and national lawsuits are proceeding. A formula is going to be developed that we could replicate on prescription rate, on death rate, on overdose deaths, to how the money is actually distributed. It’s all based generally on to abate the public nuisance. The opioid crisis created a public nuisance to the county and to the people in your county.”
Gallaher spoke once again to the concern of some as to how to disburse the potential settlement funds.
“That is how the settlement amount is distributed to the individual counties,” he said. “The county distribution to the ultimate ends of this, we will try to recover the costs to the sheriff’s department, and other departments, and hopefully there will be a great deal left over for prevention care.”
Callis added, “And also I mentioned last time that is injunctive relief. To get these multi-billion multi-national corporations to stop what you’re doing. That’s a part of the damage model.”
Gallaher explained that Garvey confirmed this week that the commission was in charge of distributing any settlement funds and that the commission already had a mechanism in place to deal with the issue.
“Typically, the commission either goes to the sheriff’s department or the health department to distribute these funds and to find that method of distribution,” he said. “As it happens, many months ago, our health department set up a consortium of state agencies, local agencies, the sheriff’s department and institutions.
"The commission is involved with it — and doctors, nurses, pharmacies, local people. The idea of this is to coordinate this and minimize red tape. The various agencies can work together, find the grants on this. They’ve really worked on this. They have roundtable discussions at their meetings.
“At the last meeting, they discussed how to increase access to Narcan for populations at risk for overdose. In this, they worked up a list of people that will work toward this. The next topic was to prevent misuse of opioid substance by reducing access. Topic after topic they worked on in that meeting.”
In reply, Callis said, “That’s amazing to me, it seems to be ahead of the game. I do want to mention that we have a lawsuit to go through, so, let’s not put the cart before the horse. I know you want to talk about money, because that’s what the commission does, but we have a fight on our hands, and then we’ll see what happens.
"Also, if there is a settlement, there has been talk about what the formula exactly would be, but the end result of that I do not know yet. I can tell you between Jack [Garvey] and I, we will constantly keep the commission and the citizens updated of what happens throughout the term of this lawsuit."
With no questions from the gallery, the commission then approved the motion to enter into the opioid lawsuit contract and Gallaher signed the resolution.
Mark Marberry is a reporter for the Farmington Press and Daily Journal. He can be reached at 573-518-3629, or at mmarberry@farmingtonpressonline.com.
