CHARLESTON – Cases involving about 600 children born exposed to opioids in the womb will be heard by West Virginia Judiciary’s Mass Litigation Panel.
West Virginia Supreme Court Chief Justice John Hutchison signed an order August 9 referring the cases to the MLP. The lawsuits are filed on behalf of children born addicted to opioids against various drug manufacturers and distributors.
“We are excited that our grandparents, foster parents, and guardians who have been taking care of these babies will finally get some traction in court,” attorney L. Dante diTrapano told The West Virginia Record. “Our group represents close to 600 NAS babies, and each of their stories are heartbreaking.
diTrapano
“We look forward to the opportunity Justice Hutchison has given us to litigate all of our cases in one place.”
DiTrapano and his team of attorneys – which also includes Booth Goodwin, P. Rodney Jackson and W. Jesse Forbes – have been working for years “to get justice for these most innocent and vulnerable victims of the opioid epidemic, but the cases have languished behind those brought on behalf of governmental entities.”
“We are so pleased that Chief Justice Hutchison has answered the call to refer the cases for these children to the Mass Litigation Panel, and we are hopeful that the Mass Litigation Panel will provide these children their own track so that they may receive justice as quickly as possible,” Goodwin said. “The quicker they receive justice, the better the outcomes we will see for these most innocent victims of the opioid epidemic.”
The state MLP consists of seven active and senior status circuit judges, and its purpose is to manage and resolve similar litigation that involves large numbers of plaintiffs or defendants.
“These judges — from across our state — are obviously tuned into the challenges faced by children exposed to opioids as well as the damage caused by those responsible for the opioid epidemic,” Goodwin said. “Unfortunately, there are likely thousands of children in our state who were born with neonatal abstinence syndrome.
“Bringing and prosecuting thousands of individual cases outside the Mass Litigation Panel would take years to resolve. These children should not have to wait years. That is why we sought this referral and are confident that the Mass Litigation Panel will see the need for an express track to justice for these children.”
The attorneys involved in these cases are diTrapano and Stuart Calwell of Calwell Luce DiTrapano in Charleston, Goodwin and Benjamin Ware of Goodwin & Goodwin in Charleston, P. Rodney Jackson of P. Rodney Jackson and Associates in Charleston and W. Jesse Forbes of Forbes Law Offices in Charleston.
In addition to their cases, three other law firms have filed similar cases against the same defendants. Those firms are New Taylor & Associates in Beckley, The Miley Legal Group in Clarksburg and The Manchin Injury Law Group in Fairmont.
“The only manageable forum for such a large amount of litigation on behalf of individual children with NAS totaling over 500, is the Mass Litigation Panel,” the plaintiffs attorneys wrote in their motion seeking referral to the MLP. “The NAS crisis among West Virginia children has been so pervasive that in response to the high rate of NAS cases in West Virginia, the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources began in 2016 to track and keep data related to NAS children and currently possesses a list, known as the West Virginia Birth Score Registry, identifying some 4,000 infants bom after October 2016 with NAS.”
Parents and guardians of children born with opioid dependency who believe they might have a claim are asked to call 1-833-682-3060.
West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals case number 22-MLP-02
