Exclusive: Horry County votes to settle major class action lawsuit against opioid distributors

Horry County leaders voted to settle a class action lawsuit against major opioid distribution companies such as AmerisourceBergen Drug Corporation, Cardinal Health and McKesson Corporation, bringing a multi-year case to a close.

It is not clear, though, what the settlement entails. Horry County leaders voted on Monday to accept the terms of a lawsuit settlement but would not share details, or even what case their vote referred to. Robert Kittle, the spokesperson for South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, confirmed to The Sun News that the case county leaders voted to settle was the class action suit against the opioid distributors.

The suit against the opioid distributors included Horry and Dillon counties in South Carolina as well as a number of cities and counties in Alabama and cities and counties in a number of other states.

Kittle said the local governments that are party to the suit have until tomorrow to vote on whether or not to join the settlement agreement. Following that, the states’ attorneys general have two weeks to assess the settlement. The distribution companies then have two weeks to finalize the settlement or not.

By Feb. 25, Kittle said, “we’ll all know whether or not we’ll have a deal.”

Kittle, like Horry County Attorney Arrigo Carotti and Council Chairman Johnny Gardner, said he could not share details of the settlement since all parties had not finalized it yet.

Jamal Campbell, a county council member in Dillon County, said he and other county officials had been briefed on the lawsuit settlement and planned to vote on whether to join soon.

Kittle said that any dollar amount that’s ultimately part of the settlement will be divvied up among the plaintiffs via a formula and that the money would be required to go toward “approved abatements” such as law enforcement efforts, Narcan distribution or education. He said he could not share what amount of funding Horry County or other South Carolina counties might receive.

Horry County leaders, though, told The Sun News that the lawsuit settlement is favorable for the county. Both Gardner and county council member Johnny Vaught declined to provide any details about the settlement.

“It’s a good thing,” Gardner said.

“It’s a win for us,” added Vaught.

Carotti declined to comment on the lawsuit settlement on Monday. Horry County spokesperson Kelly Moore said in a statement Tuesday it’s the county’s policy to not “offer commentary on substantive matters related to pending litigation.”

Messages sent to the attorneys representing Horry County in the case were not returned prior to publication. Messages seeking comment from AmerisourceBergen, the lead defendant on the case, were not returned prior to publication.

In it’s original lawsuit filed in 2018, Horry County alleged AmerisourceBergen and the other distribution companies had a legal duty to detect and halt “suspicious orders” of opioids originating from Horry County, and that the companies failed to do so. The Sun News has previously detailed how the county was once home to a “pill mill” that distributed large quantities of Oxycontin and other opioids.

The volume of opioids flowing into Horry County via the distributors, the county alleged in the lawsuit, caused the county to achieve an “opioid prescription rate of 110.7 per 100 persons, one of the highest in the state of South Carolina.” The county cited a statistic that 101 people died of opioid overdoses in 2016. That figure climbed to 131 deaths as of 2019.

“The sheer volume of prescription opioids distributed to pharmacies in Horry County, South Carolina, is patently excessive for the medical needs of the community and facially suspicious,” the county alleged in its 2018 suit. “Meanwhile, the opioid epidemic continues to rage unabated in the nation, the state and Horry County.”

Horry County leaders said more details about the settlement will be released to the public soon.