Class-action suit takes aim at Big Pharma over babies exposed to opioids

John Weston, the attorney at Sacks Weston Diamond who brought the suit Friday on behalf of an anonymous baby boy and his mother, said he believes the case is the first of its kind in Pennsylvania. Lawsuits on behalf of babies with neonatal abstinence syndrome, or NAS, have been filed in several other states, but are not as common as the wave of litigation against pharmaceutical companies, often filed by state and local governments seeking to recover costs related to the opioid epidemic.

“It’s basically the same theory as all of the other opioid cases,” which allege that pharmaceutical companies sparked the opioid crisis by aggressively marketing opioid pain medications and downplaying their addictive properties, Weston said. “It’s just a different group of plaintiffs—children exposed to opioids in the womb who display symptoms of withdrawal at birth.