Authorization of the Quebec Opioid Class Action

MONTREAL, April 12, 2024 /CNW/ - The Montreal-based law firms Fishman Flanz Meland Paquin LLP ("FFMP") and Trudel Johnston & Lespérance ("TJL") are pleased to announce that, by judgment released on April 10, 2024, the proposed class action in Bourassa v. Abbott Laboratories Ltd. et al. has been authorized to proceed against 16 pharmaceutical companies for their role in manufacturing selling, marketing and/or distributing opioid drugs in Quebec.

Mark E. Meland, a partner of FFMP states: "As a result of this important judgment, there now exists a vehicle for victims, whose lives have been devastated by the use of prescription opioids, to seek and obtain rightful compensation for the harms caused to them by the pharmaceutical companies who produced and supplied these dangerous drugs".

André Lespérance, a partner of TJL adds: "It is a credit to the Quebec judicial system that this is the first Canadian class action taken against opioid manufacturers that has been authorized on an industry-wide basis in order to provide access to justice to opioid victims".

Class counsel shall continue to aggressively pursue these proceedings and seek justice for class members who have suffered serious damages as a result of using prescription medications belonging to the class of drugs known as opioids, including those with the active ingredients, oxycodone, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, fentanyl, morphine and codeine.

The following persons are members of the authorized class and are covered by the present class action: 

All persons in Quebec who have been prescribed and consumed anyone or more of the opioids medications identified in Schedule I attached hereto, manufactured, marketed, distributed and/or sold by the Defendants between 1996 and the present day ("Class Period") and who have been diagnosed by a physician as suffering or having suffered from Opioid Use Disorder.

The Class excludes any person whose claim, or any portion thereof, is in relation to the drugs OxyContin and OxyNEO, as well as in relation to opioid drugs that were solely and exclusively available for use in a hospital setting and not prescribed for use in the home.

The Class also includes the direct heirs of any deceased person who during his or her lifetime met the above description, subject to the same exclusions.

The judgment authorizing the Quebec opioid class action will be posted on the websites of class counsel in the coming days, at: https://ffmp.ca/ and https://tjl.quebec/en/

SOURCE Fishman Flanz Meland Paquin LLP