Schuylkill County suing opioid makers

Its courts, prison and addiction treatment systems staggering under the burden of rising drug use, Schuylkill County on Thursday took the first step toward suing opioid makers to recoup the costs of dealing with the fallout.

County commissioners are retaining the law firm of Saltz, Mongelussi, Barrett & Bendesky P.C. to represent the county in the “initiation and prosecution of litigation against those drug manufacturing companies that manufactured, promoted, distributed, and sold opioids nationally, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and in Schuylkill County.”

There is money paid upfront; if any suit results an award, the county will pay the firm 25 percent of the gross settlement, Roth said.

Schuylkill’s step comes five months after neighboring Carbon County commissioners made the same move, signing on with Marc J. Bern & Partners LLP, New York, New York.

Commissioners’ Chairman George F. Halcovage Jr. said the county was approached by several firms.

He thanked Roth and the rest of the county’s legal team for its work in researching the proposals.

Opioid addiction is a “very serious problem we have in our country, in our state, in our county. It’s affecting every family,” Halcovage said.

The numbers add up to big trouble.

In 2016, Schuylkill County saw 77 deaths due to drug overdoses.

Seventy to 80 percent of offenders are addicted to drugs, county drug court Judge James P. Goodman has said.

The rise in addiction means more people are being arrested, either for drug use or sales, or for committing other crimes to get money to support their addiction.

The surge has resulted in the need for more drug counselors, more probation officers, and more public defenders.

In Schuylkill County, it also means spending more money to house overflow inmates from the county jail in other counties.

So far this year, the county has spent about $200,000 to do that, not counting overtime for sheriff’s deputies and transportation costs.

In signing on with the law firm, Schuylkill joins 18 other counties that have either put play in place or have sued opioid makers.

They are Armstrong, Beaver, Cambria, Carbon, Columbia, Cumberland, Dauphin, Delaware, Erie, Fayette, Greene, Lackawanna, Lawrence, Luzerne, Pike, Washington, Westmoreland and York.