The Supreme Court recently announced that it will review Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement, which would release the company’s owners, the Sackler family, from future civil liability for the harms they imposed on millions of opioid victims. Some see this as an opportunity to vindicate victims and prevent abusive bankruptcy settlements. That is wrong.

The reality is that the Supreme Court’s review comes at a major cost to opioid victims, potentially delaying compensation they would receive by months or even years. It might also cost the entire legal system. If the court rejects the settlement in this case, it would cripple our bankruptcy courts, which play a key role in remedying mistreatment of mass tort victims by our legal system.

The harm to victims is hard to overstate, as is the malignancy of Purdue’s conduct. The company has twice pleaded guilty to criminal charges — first in 2007, for misleading the public about the safety of its products, and again in 2020, for defrauding the United States and violating the federal anti-kickback statute.

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