A federal judge on Monday declined to disqualify Motley Rice from dozens of opioid cases, but said he was “very uncomfortable” with its government client arrangements.
U.S. District Judge Dan Polster, in the Northern District of Ohio, found the timing of pharmacy benefit manager OptumRx’s Dec. 15 disqualification motion to be suspect, particularly since it could have raised its concerns as early as 2018, when the judge appointed Motley Rice member Joe Rice to the plaintiffs’ executive committee in the opioid multidistrict litigation.
