Elizabeth J. Cabraser

San Francisco

Litigation

In the wake of a drugged populace or a contaminated water supply, Elizabeth J. Cabraser enters like an avenging force of purification.

As a partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP in San Francisco, she fights in the vanguard of the historic national opioid drugs litigation, representing cities, counties and Native American tribes in individual lawsuits against distributors and manufacturers of prescription opioid drugs, and national chain pharmacies. She serves on the settlement committee, plaintiffs' executive committee and tribal committee in the coordinated, multidistrict national litigation in which plaintiffs claim that defendants downplayed the addictive dangers of opioid use, and over-marketed, over-distributed, and over-dispensed these controlled substances, contributing to the resulting public nuisance, the nationwide opioids epidemic.

In City and County of San Francisco et al. v. Purdue Pharma, she served on the team representing San Francisco against opioid manufacturers, dispensers and distributors, securing a settlement with some defendants for $54 million in July 2022. A month later, in the first bench trial to decide in the plaintiff's favor in the national litigation, the court found Walgreens Pharmacy also liable for contributing to the opioid crisis. Walgreens then agreed to pay the city $230 million. Multibillion-dollar National settlements with Walgreens and other opioids defendants followed in 2022. Settlements are progressing in the related McKinsey opioids litigation as well, in which she serves as plaintiffs' lead counsel.

As for Purdue Pharma in general, Cabraser said she was supportive of the bankruptcy plan "as a matter of practical necessity to get things moving through, and I think the Supreme Court recognizes that this is something that is time sensitive and urgent, and hence, while they granted review, they granted it on an expedited schedule."

Cabraser and her firm represent public funds in cases alleging the price-fixing of twenty generic drugs orchestrated by twenty pharmaceutical companies. In March 2023, the court approved a $75 million settlement, while the Department of Justice continues to prosecute criminal cases relating to this investigation. In Generic Pharmaceuticals Pricing Antitrust Litigation (MDL No. 2724).

-Kathryn Stelmach Artuso