Last week, after months of legal maneuvering, a New York bankruptcy judge approved Purdue Pharma's Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan, including contentious opioid liability releases for the Sackler family, the owners of Purdue. Numerous state attorneys and other parties generally oppose the deal, arguing that the court does not have the authority to release the Sacklers from liability without state consent.

Multiple JUUL lawsuits from around the country were consolidated in the JUUL multidistrict litigation (MDL) in 2019 and assigned to Judge William Orrick in the Northern District of California. The MDL consists of individual personal injury cases, school district public nuisance cases, county and municipality cases, and class action cases.