Oklahoma court overturns $465M opioid ruling against J&J

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – The Oklahoma Supreme Court has overturned a $465 million opioid ruling against drugmaker Johnson & Johnson, finding that a lower court wrongly interpreted the state’s public nuisance law.

The court ruled in a 5-1 decision Tuesday that the district court in 2019 was wrong to find that New Jersey-based J&J and its Belgium-based subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals violated the state’s public nuisance statute. It also rejected the state’s appeal to increase the damage award to $9.3 billion.

Spokespeople for the state’s current attorney general, John O’Connor, and for J&J did not immediately respond to a requests for comment.