Judy Cates
SimmonsCooper law firm wrung a settlement out of an inactive OxyContin class action that the Korein Tillery firm dumped three years ago.
In December, SimmonsCooper and Purdue Pharma jointly dismissed a suit that Judy Cates of Korein Tillery filed in 2001.
They dusted the suit off after more than two years on inactive status.
When Cates filed it for Allied Services of Edwardsville, she proposed to represent all who suffered damages from abuse of the painkiller.
She claimed Purdue Pharma failed to prevent prescription abuse.
The suit fared so poorly that when Cates started her own firm three years ago, neither she nor Korein Tillery took it.
Art Sadin of Friendswood, Texas, took it but still it did not budge.
In September 2004 Circuit Judge Daniel Stack declared it inactive.
He deactivated 31 drug suits that other attorneys had filed, not as class actions but as product liability or negligence claims.
Stack invited all parties to break out of what he called a holding pattern.
Not much happened, but the cases remained open.
In January 2006, Kenneth Brennan of SimmonsCooper filed an entry of appearance in the Allied Services class action claim.
On Dec. 22, Tor Hoerman of SimmonsCooper and Purdue Pharma attorney Troy Bozarth jointly moved to dismiss.
They wrote, "This matter has been pending since September 2001 but procedurally is still at a very early stage."
They wrote that each party would bear its own costs.
Stack granted the motion.