TO Joins Briefing Urging Opioid MDL Judge to Reject “One-Size-Fits-All” Approach to Common Benefit Fees; Judge Agrees

This week Judge Polster denied an attempt by the Opioid Multidistrict Litigation Plaintiffs' Executive Committee (PEC) to obtain an overreaching and entirely premature common benefit fee order. Cheryl Priest Ainsworth says, “This denial was based, at least in part, on our briefing of the issues, characterizing the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach proposed by the PEC as unfair, inefficient, and unduly burdensome on attorneys litigating these cases on behalf of local governments in state court, where we arguably obtained little, if any benefit from the PEC's work. Far from sitting back and riding the PEC's coattails in the federal MDL, we have been actively waging our own battles against these defendants in state courts across the nation.”

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