Ohio Supreme Court Finds No Duty to Defend Distributor of Opioids
The Ohio Supreme Court found there was no duty defend the distributor of opioids in suits filed by governmental entities because such entities had not suffered bodily injury. Acuity v, Masters Pharm. Inc., 2022 Ohio LEXIS 1814 (Ohio Sept. 7, 2022).
Masters Pharmaceutical, Inc. was a wholesale distributor of prescription opioids around the country. Twenty-two cities and counties in West Virginia, Michigan, and Nevada sued Masters and other distributors and retailers. The governments alleged that Masters failed to monitor and report suspicious orders of prescription opioids and to implement measures to prevent the filling of improper prescriptions. It failed to maintain effective controls against the diversion of prescription opioids into the illicit market in violation of federal and state laws. The governments asserted claims for public nuisance, negligence, and violations of the RICO Act.
Masters held eight commercial general liability policies from Acuity running from July 26, 2010 to July 26, 2018. Masters tendered the numerous lawsuits filed against it. Acuity refused to defend and filed suit in Ohio for a declaratory judgment that it had no duty to defend or indemnify.
The trial court agreed with Acuity. The underlying complaints did not seek “damages because of bodily injury,” because the governments sought damages solely for their own economic loss, not damages for any citizen’s opioid addition. Masters appealed and the appellate court agreed, reversing the trial court’s judgment. The case was then appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court.
A Seventh Circuit case had concluded that the insurer had a duty to defend the pharmaceutical distributor in the underlying litigation because West Virginia alleged that its citizens had suffered opioid-related bodily injuries and the state sought to recover as damages the money it had spend caring for the injuries. Cincinnati Ins. Co. v. H.D. Smith, LLC, 829 F3d 771 (7th Cir. 2016). The Ohio court disagreed with this result when applying Ohio law.
The underlying suits sought damages for losses suffered due to Masters’s failure “to effectively monitor and report suspicious orders of prescription opioids” and “to implement measures to prevent the filling of improper prescriptions.” The suits alleged that Masters “directly caused a public-health and law-enforcement crisis,” thereby forcing the governments to shoulder tremendous costs and an exorbitant financial burden.
Acuity argued these allegations demonstrated that the governments sought reimbursement for costs for increased governmental services provided to the public on account of the opioid epidemic, not for bodily injury experienced by any specific person. The Ohio Supreme Court agreed.
The court next asked how to interpret the phrase “damages because of bodily injury” as used in the CGL policies. The court noted that the policy used language to apply coverage only if (1) the bodily injury was caused by an occurrence in the coverage territory, and (2) the bodily injury occurred during the policy period. The repeated use of the phrase “the bodily injury” suggested that the damages sought in the underlying suits had to be tied to a particular body injury sustained by a person in order to invoke coverage under the policies.
Therefore, the phrase “damages because of bodily injury” required more than a tenuous connection between the alleged bodily injury sustained by a person and the damages sought. A sufficient connection would exist when the damages sought in the underlying suit were for losses asserted by (1) the person injured or (2) a person recovering on behalf of the injured person.
Here the governments’ claims in the underlying suits did not seek damages for bodily injury sustained by themselves. Therefore, the underling suits did not seek “damages because of bodily injury” and Acuity did not have a duty to defend Masters in the underlying suits.
