Georgia court: Wholesale prescription medication distributors not liable

(The Center Square) — The Supreme Court of Georgia has upheld a Glynn County jury's verdict that found wholesale prescription medication distributors are not liable for damages under the state's Drug Dealer Liability Act.

A group of 21 family members of drug abusers sued wholesale distributors of prescription medications for damages, arguing that "drug abusers who injured" them were addicted to prescription opioids. The family members accused wholesale distributors of not reporting suspicious orders to Glynn County area pharmacies or stopping the orders' shipments.

In its unanimous opinion, authored by Justice Carla Wong McMillian, the state's highest court rejected arguments that a trial court judge was wrong to deny a motion for a new trial and to refuse to instruct the jury on willful blindness. The family members argued a juror was dishonest during the selection process and introduced extraneous prejudicial information during deliberations.

During a 2023 jury trial, the family members argued that the wholesalers violated state and federal laws by distributing controlled substances to pharmacies that filled thousands of invalid prescriptions from "pill mill" doctors.

The wholesalers, licensed by the state and registered with the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, argued that they adhered to compliance and due diligence programs to safeguard against diverting controlled substances and followed federal and state regulators' directives about tracking and reporting suspicious pharmacy orders.

Distributors concurrently cross-appealed, arguing that if the state's highest court vacated the judgment, it should find Georgia's Drug Dealer Liability Act to be unconstitutional as it "violates due process by imposing liability without requiring any transactional nexus between a defendant's conduct and a plaintiff's injury." However, since justices dismissed the family members' appeal, they did not rule on the constitutionality of the state's Drug Dealer Liability Act.