CVS
WILMINGTON, Del. - The costs of fighting lawsuits over the opioid crisis aren't on insurers, the Delaware Supreme Court has ruled in a loss for the pharmacy chain CVS.
CVS reached a global settlement in 2023 for around $5 billion after local governments hired private lawyers to sue makers, distributors and retailers of opioids, alleging they overlooked red flags in the system and allowed addicts access.
In Delaware court, it sought money from insurers Chubb and AIG for defense costs in a group of cases. AIG had issued policies covering claims against CVS of "bodily injury" caused by an accident, while Chubb's policies were for "bodily injury" arising out of a pharmacist liability incident.
The claims made by local and state governments, however, were for reimbursement of health care costs spent on opioid users.
"(T)he insurers did not have a duty to defend CVS because the underlying lawsuits do not allege specific and individualized personal injury or property damage," Chief Justice Collins Seitz wrote Aug. 18.
"And to the extent that the pleadings or underlying lawsuits unexpectedly transform into ones alleging damage from specific and individualized bodily injury and property damage, the insurers conceded at oral argument that CVS could tender a new claim for coverage at that time."
The decision affirms a lower court ruling that said the same, rejecting the idea that the pharmacist liability clause in the insurance policies triggered coverage. The courts also said insurers had no responsibility to pay some of CVS's settlement.
They also don't have to pay for lawsuits brought by hospitals seeking damages for a financial strain.
CVS's national settlement, it said, indicated it had been sued for "damages because of 'bodily injury.'"
"But settlement agreement language is not a reliable coverage indicator because '[t]o do so would encourage litigants to manipulate settlement language to secure... insurance coverage where it would otherwise not exist,'" Seitz wrote.
"The national settlement agreement funds expenses in response to the opioid crisis at-large, but it does not change the fact that the underlying lawsuits do not seek specific damages tied to individualized injuries and trigger coverage."
