Johnson & Johnson, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and other former opioid makers scored the pharmaceutical industry’s first win in the sprawling four-year litigation over the drugs, defeating a lawsuit by local governments in California that claimed they created a public-health crisis through misleading marketing.
Superior Court Judge Peter Wilson in Santa Ana on Monday rejected claims that units of J&J, Teva, Endo International Plc and Abbvie Inc.’s Allergan Plc duped doctors and patients about the addictiveness of opioid painkillers and created a so-called “public nuisance” tied to the medications. Officials in Los Angeles, Santa Clara and Orange counties ...
