Everything You Need to Know About the CVS Opioid Lawsuit
The pharmacy chain is accused of violating the federal Controlled Substances Act.
Published Dec. 20 2024, 12:14 p.m. ET
CVS has found itself in hot water after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a legal action against the pharmacy chain. In its complaint, the DOJ alleges that CVS has violated federal law with its handling of certain opioid prescriptions.
This isn't the first time CVS made an appearance in the country's court systems over accusations stemming from opioid prescription practices.
According to news outlets reporting on the case, there is at least one so-called whistleblower working with the DOJ as part of the accusations against the company.
Find out more about the CVS opioid lawsuit below, including how the DOJ claims employees were encouraged to violate local and federal laws.
Why is CVS facing an opioid lawsuit?
According to CNN, the suit's details were unsealed on Dec. 18, 2024, which painted a stark picture of what the company stands accused of.
Investigators believe that CVS employees were instructed to violate the Controlled Substance Act and told to fill illegal opioid prescriptions.
The lawsuit alleges that the company not only knowingly filled these scripts written by "pill mill doctors," but they also did so without regard to the amount of the highly addictive medication they were giving patients or the potential interactions that these drugs could have with other prescriptions.
The DOJ has reason to believe that employees were told to do this based on a company mandate, where profits were prioritized over customer safety.
CVS stands accused of filling illegal opioid prescriptions for more than a decade.
A statement from the DOJ says that the government believes CVS has been filling these illegal prescriptions since Oct. 17, 2013. It accuses the company of setting corporate-level mandates around that time that incentivized the fulfillment of these illegal prescriptions and even instituted staffing policies to further profit from these types of requests.
The DOJ also claims that CVS further limited the power of its pharmacists, preventing them from warning other pharmacists about potentially illegal and dangerous prescription filers.
As such, the federal organization believes that CVS played a major role in the country's devastating opioid epidemic.
CVS denies intentionally breaking laws while fulfilling patient opioid prescriptions.
CVS maintains its innocence. A spokesperson for CVS spoke with The Hill about the lawsuit, telling the publication that CVS is being held to a standard that doesn't exist in the world of law yet.
"Many of the litigation theories laid out in the complaint are not found in any statute or regulation, and relate to topics on which the government has declined to provide guidance," they told The Hill.
“Each of the prescriptions in question was for an FDA-approved opioid medication prescribed by a practitioner who the government itself licensed, authorized, and empowered to write controlled-substance prescriptions,” the spokesperson continued.
While it's unclear what will happen next in this lawsuit, CVS does have a long history of appearing in federal courts over its prescription practices.
In one example, a 2011 court case ended with the pharmaceutical giant shelling out $17.5 million as part of a settlement over Medicaid claims.
It sounds like CVS may end up digging into its pockets again over this case as well, but only time will tell how the lawyers and judges will decide to proceed.