By Dietrich Knauth
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Rite Aid sued the U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday, seeking to stop a lawsuit alleging that the bankrupt pharmacy chain ignored red flags and illegally filled hundreds of thousands of prescriptions for addictive opioid medication.
The DOJ, which sued Rite Aid in March, agreed only to a “brief pause” of its lawsuit after Rite Aid went bankrupt last month, a position that threatens to undermine the company’s restructuring efforts, Rite Aid said in a complaint filed on Thursday in New Jersey bankruptcy court.
Rite Aid asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan to rule that the DOJ lawsuit cannot proceed while Rite Aid is bankrupt, which would put the government on equal footing with other opioid plaintiffs whose lawsuits were automatically stopped by the company’s bankruptcy filing.
The DOJ has argued that U.S. bankruptcy law does not stop it from exercising its “police powers” through its lawsuit.
Rite Aid would not concede that point, and said a bankruptcy judge should rule on that dispute rather than the judge overseeing the DOJ’s lawsuit in Cleveland federal court.
(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
