The billionaire owners of Purdue Pharma LP must face a New York lawsuit claiming they triggered the U.S. opioid epidemic, a judge ruled, handing an early victory to states and local governments seeking to recoup billions of dollars in social costs from the drugs. A state judge on Friday denied the Sacklers’ request to dismiss the lawsuit, filed by 58 counties and two dozen cities in New York. The ruling, in Suffolk County on Long Island, is the first by any court denying a motion by the Sacklers to throw out a suit by a state or county and allowing for pretrial fact-finding to proceed against the individual defendants and their trusts, said Paul Neapel, an attorney representing the New York governments. The ruling will require the Sacklers “to undergo depositions that will start to get to the bottom of their relationship between each other and their relationship to their conduct on the board and here in New York,” Napoli said in an interview. Herunterladen