In re National Prescription Opiate Litigation

While Carole Rendon was the United States attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, she chaired a task force created to combat the area’s opioid epidemic. Task-force members included government entities from Cuyahoga County (plaintiff) and the City of Cleveland (plaintiff). After a new president took office in 2017, Rendon was forced to resign. A few months later, Rendon began working for BakerHostetler, a private law firm, where she represented opioid manufacturer Endo Health Solutions, Inc. (Endo) (defendant). In October 2017, Cuyahoga County sued Endo and others, seeking billions in damages for allegedly contributing to the opioid epidemic. Six months later, Cleveland filed a similar lawsuit. The lawsuits were joined in a multidistrict litigation (MDL). In January 2019, Cleveland moved to disqualify Rendon and BakerHostetler from representing Endo in the MDL based on Rendon’s prior task-force work. The parties disputed whether Rendon, during her government work, had received confidential information from Cuyahoga County or Cleveland that could impact issues in the MDL. However, allowing discovery on the issue risked revealing any such confidential information to Endo. The federal district court determined the United States Department of Justice (the department) was neutral and asked it to investigate whether Rendon had received relevant confidential information while on the task force. Witnesses from Cleveland and Cuyahoga County told the department that, in conversations relating to task-force work, they had shared information with Rendon in confidence about matters that could negatively impact the entities’ damages claims, such as information about staffing and funding deficiencies. The department reported this to the court. The court considered the motion to disqualify.