'A Slap on the Wrist': Legal Expert Pans Multibillion-Dollar Opioid Settlement (Feat. Jen Taub)

Objections: With Adam Klasfeld

Blockbuster settlements with people and corporations that used to be the biggest names in the opioid industry came in rapid order this July.

First, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a $4.5 billion dollar deal that would ban the Sackler family from the trade, and the so-called "big three" drug distributors and a pharmaceutical giant proposed a $26 billion global settlement that would end persistent litigation with more than a dozen states.

But behind the large numbers and the lifetime industry bans, a scholar known for charting inequality in the justice system saw the same old "slap on the wrist."

"At the end of the day, the family that made billions of dollars from selling a highly addictive drug that the corporation fraudulently peddled as safe and effective—and not as addictive as other opioids—they will still be exceedingly wealthy," Western New England University School of Law Professor Jennifer Taub says on the episode.

Listen to Taub's analysis of the opioid litigation—and the nascent prosecution of the Trump Organization and CFO Allen Weisselberg on this podcast.

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