Elizabeth J. Cabraser

The recent $8 billion settlement between OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP and the U.S. Department of Justice is “a major step forward in getting desperately needed funds to state, tribal, and local governments to fight and abate the opioid crisis, which has only intensified under COVID,” Cabraser said.

The deal resolves federal criminal charges against the company. The bulk of civil cases against Purdue and other opioid makers and distributors are in multidistrict litigation before U.S. District Judge Dan Polster in Cleveland, where Cabraser serves on the plaintiffs’ executive committee. In re: National Prescription Opiate Litigation, 1:17-md-02804, (N.D. Ohio, filed Dec. 12, 2017).

Polster has sent several bellwether cases back to their originating courts for trial. In one, Cabraser is representing San Francisco along with the city attorney’s office. City and County of San Francisco v. Purdue Pharma LP, 3:18-cv-07591 (N.D. Cal, filed Dec. 18, 2018).

She and her firm could go to trial soon in bellwethers in West Virginia federal court and New York state court. “On the plaintiffs’ side in the opioid litigation we just keep chugging along and preparing our cases as if they will go to trial momentarily,” she said.

For decades, Cabraser has been handling sprawling mass tort and consumer fraud litigation such as multidistrict cases and class actions over the Exxon Valdez oil spill, “clean diesel” Volkswagens and Takata airbags.

Along with partner Dean M. Harvey, she represents New York City’s largest public employee union in a case alleging price fixing of generic drugs. “It is the largest piece of antitrust multidistrict litigation in existence,” Cabraser said. In Re: Generic Pharmaceuticals Pricing Antitrust Litigation, 2:16-md-02724, (E.D. Pa., filed Aug. 5, 2016).

She and her partners represent people who suffered losses in California’s wildfires in 2017 and 2018. Cases from the Northern California fires, caused by faulty Pacific Gas & Electric Co. equipment, were resolved with the creation of a $13.5 billion trust as part of PG&E’s bankruptcy. Cabraser, who serves on the trust oversight committee, said it is one of the largest tort victims’ trusts in history. In re: Pacific Gas and Electric Co., 19-30088 (Bankr N.D. Cal., filed Jan 29, 2019).

With California fires worsening every year, these cases hit close to home for Cabraser. “I live in Sonoma County, and we’ve evacuated twice this [fire] season,” she said.

—Don DeBenedictis