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The Walgreens em-ployee was bewilderedby the quantity of opioidsthe company was ship-ping to just one store. Itspharmacy in Port Richey,Florida (population2,831) was ordering 3,271bottles of oxycodone amonth.“I don’t know how

they can even house thismany bottles to be hon-est,” Barbara Martin,whose job was to reviewsuspicious drug orders,wrote to a colleague in aJanuary 2011 email. Thenext month, the compa-ny shipped another out-sized order to the samestore.The email was among

thousands of documentsfrom corporations acrossthe pharmaceutical andretail industries – in-ternal memos, deposi-tions, sales and shippingreports, experts’ analys-es, and other confidentialinformation – filed Fridayin U.S. court in Cleve-land by lawyers for cities,towns and counties dev-astated by addiction.They lay out a detailedcase of how diverse cor-porate interests – farbeyond the familiar play-ers like Purdue Pharma –fed a deadly opioid epi-demic that persisted fornearly two decades.Little-known manu-

facturers of generic pills,superstores like Walmartand chain retailers likeRite Aid also flooded thecountry with billions ofpills, according to the

filings. The devastationwas so extreme that oneOhio county resorted to amobile morgue to handleall the corpses of peoplewho died from over-doses.As the epidemic crest-

ed, the suppliers with thegreatest sales were notthe branded manufactur-ers but those who madegeneric prescriptiondrugs. Between 2003and 2011, lawyers for theplaintiffs said in onefiling, Mallinckrodt, theIreland-based manu-facturer of generic andbranded drugs, sold 53million orders of opioids.Yet the company stoppedand then reported tofederal authorities atmost 33 orders as suspi-cious, a ratio the lawyersdescribed as defyingcredibility.The filings represent a

signature moment in therun-up to the first trial ofnearly 2,000 casesbrought by cities andcounties nationwide,consolidated in an Ohiofederal court. They areseeking billions of dollarsin compensation fromthe corporations impli-cated in the opioid epi-demic.Both sides have largely

finished gathering evi-dence, and Friday’s fil-ings attempt to solidifymajor claims for the firsttrial, which is scheduledto begin in October.Stemming from a lawsuitbrought by Cuyahogaand Summit counties inOhio, it is intended as alitmus test for the re-maining cases. JudgeDan Aaron Polster ofU.S. District Court ofNorthern Ohio hopesthat the shadow of the

trial will goad the sidesto reach a national settle-ment that could awardmoney to cities, townsand counties across thecountry, and foreclosefurther opioid lawsuits.With Friday’s briefs,

the plaintiffs want thejudge to rule that foryears, defendants ig-nored and violated lawsthat required them tomonitor and report suspi-cious orders. They alsoargue that defendantscreated a “public nui-sance”– a continuingcrisis that affects the farreaches of public health,including neonatal in-tensive care, foster care,emergency services,detox and rehabilitationprograms and the crimi-nal justice system.The pharmaceutical

industry also filed briefsFriday. Many submis-

sions, including exhibits,were limited, heavilyredacted or outrightsealed.Manufacturers of ge-

neric drugs argued thatthey do not market theiropioids, nor should theybe penalized for sellingversions of prescriptionsapproved by the Foodand Drug Administra-tion. The pharmacychains argued that theplaintiffs offered noproof that opioids theydistributed only to theirown stores had beenillegally diverted. Andthey said that manyplaintiffs’ claims wereinvalid because statutesof limitations had runout.But the plaintiffs off-

ered up a less benignview of how opioids flewthrough the pharmacies.When patients of Dr.

Adolph Harper, a gyne-cologist, needed to buyopioids, they oftenseemed to show up atRite Aid stores near hisoffice in Akron, Ohio.His clinic prescribedhundreds of thousands ofthe painkillers, such asOxyContin, Roxicet,Percocet and Opana. Hecontinued to do so eventhough at least eightpatients overdosed anddied, the Justice Depart-ment has previously said.Harper was arrested andsentenced to 10 years injail.But despite all the

opioid prescriptionspouring in from Harper,the company did notidentify any suspiciousorders coming fromHarper’s clinic, the plain-tiffs said. Instead, RiteAid increased its ordersto meet the surge indemand from the clinic.For years, long after

the opioid crisis began,the giant pharmacychains, including Wal-greens and CVS, andWalmart did almost

nothing to fulfill theirlegal duty to monitorsuspicious orders, theplaintiffs’ lawyers claim.While they were sup-posed to block such or-ders and alert the DrugEnforcement Adminis-tration, they did so rare-ly.One official at Wal-

greens tasked with mon-itoring such orders saidhis department was “notequipped” for that work.The company createdlists of suspicious ordersthat ran thousands ofpages, but then shippedthem without furtherreview.Asked for a response,

Walgreens issued a state-ment saying it “has notdistributed prescriptioncontrolled substancessince 2014 and beforethat time only distributedto our chain of pharma-cies.” The companycalled itself “an industryleader in combating thiscrisis.”An official at CVS who

was listed as the compa-ny’s DEA compliancecoordinator admittedthat it was not her realjob, the plaintiffs’ filingsaid. Much of the compa-ny’s compliance wasrelegated to “pickers andpackers” – the warehouseworkers at distributioncenters who appeared tohave no formal trainingin monitoring and rarelyheld up orders. In thecompany’s Indianapolisdistribution center, ap-proximately two orderswere flagged each yearfrom 2006 to 2014.Before 2011, Walmart

had no discernible sys-tem to monitor suspi-cious orders, the plain-tiffs contended. Thecompany said it relied onits hourly employees,which the plaintiffscalled a “farcical” claimwith no evidence oftraining or policy inplace.

Corporations fed opioidepidemic, court filings sayBY JAN HOFFMAN,KATIE THOMASAND DANNY HAKIMNew York Times

KEITH SRAKOCIC AP

Thousands of documents filed Friday in U.S. court in Cleveland lay out a detailedcase of how diverse corporate interests fed a deadly opioid epidemic.