Family of opioid victim can continue lawsuit against Rochester Drug Cooperative

Gary Craig
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
Sarah Fuller

A bankruptcy judge Friday ruled it would be "particularly heartless" to prevent the family of a New Jersey woman killed by an opioid overdose from pursuing payments from the insurers of Rochester Drug Cooperative.

The family of Sarah Fuller, who died in 2016, has sued the manufacturers and others connected to distribution of the pain medication, Subsys, which killed Fuller. Rochester Drug Cooperative, a wholesale pharmaceutical distributor that has shut down operations and is now seeking bankruptcy protection, was the suspected distributor of the Subsys used by Fuller.

The Fuller family is pursuing a lawsuit against Rochester Drug Cooperative, or RDC, in federal court in New Jersey.

RDC wanted the Fullers to be among the many creditors seeking money from the remaining assets of the company, which is selling facilities in Gates and in New Jersey. But lawyers for the Fullers argued that the family is instead seeking possible payments from RDC insurers, and not RDC, and the Fuller family should not be treated the same as other would-be creditors in bankruptcy court.

Federal bankruptcy Judge Paul Warren on Friday agreed with the attorneys for the Fullers, ruling after a hearing that the family could pursue its action against the RDC insurers. To make the Fullers continue to wait for the division of RDC assets would be "a far greater harm for the Fullers than it is to RDC," Warren ruled.

RDC may have nothing more than an administrative burden of providing information for the New Jersey lawsuit, while the Fullers, if they were left to be among those seeking money from RDC in the lengthy bankruptcy process, would see the "closing of courthouse doors in their faces, depriving them of the chance to seek and maybe find a measure of justice," Warren said.

Still, Warren said, "no measure of justice may be enough to assuage the Fullers in their loss."

Sarah Fuller suffered continuing pain after two automobile accidents. She was prescribed Subsys, a prescription fentanyl spray that was originally intended for pain-ridden cancer sufferers.

Subsys became one of the deadly medications during the nation's continuing opioid epidemic, as its manufacturers bribed medical practitioners to distribute the opioid when medically unnecessary. Subsys is considered 100 times more powerful than morphine.

RDC last year became the first pharmaceutical distributor to be criminally charged with narcotics trafficking. It reached an agreement with federal authorities, which included a $20 million fine, to resolve the allegations.

The company's former chief executive officer, Laurence Dowd III, is now facing federal narcotics trafficking charges.

Contact Gary Craig at gcraig@gannett.com or at 585-258-2479. Follow him on Twitter at gcraig1