Walmart settled a lawsuit with the Justice Department on Friday after the retail giant faced sweeping accusations that it fueled a nationwide opioid epidemic for years by unlawfully dispensing prescriptions from its pharmacies.
A joint stipulation dismissing the case was filed on Thursday in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware. The development comes after the DOJ in 2020 sued Walmart, alleging it had been in violation of the Controlled Substances Act since 2013 by filling thousands of invalid or suspicious prescriptions, inflaming the opioid crisis that killed upward of 1 million U.S. citizens.
“The department is pleased to have reached a settlement with Walmart resolving allegations that its pharmacies failed to comply with their obligations under the Controlled Substances Act in dispensing opioids and other controlled substances,” a DOJ spokesperson said.
Walmart said in a statement it was “pleased to resolve this matter and will continue supporting the exceptional work our pharmacists do every day to provide outstanding patient care.”
The lawsuit was one of the DOJ’s most significant civil actions targeting a company over its alleged role in the opioid crisis.
Critics argued the DOJ’s lawsuit unfairly targeted Walmart’s network of over 5,000 pharmacies for filling prescriptions instead of penalizing the doctors who prescribed the medications in the first place. If Walmart had been held liable, it would have been required to pay $67,627 for each unlawful prescription it filled and $15,691 for each suspicious order it did not report to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Walmart argued confusing government regulations put pharmacists in an “untenable” position by either filling prescriptions and risking criminal or civil liability, or refusing prescriptions and facing backlash from patients and doctors.
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Details about the company’s settlement with the DOJ remain unclear as of Friday.
Before its agreement with the federal government, Walmart in 2022 had previously pledged to pay roughly $3 billion over 15 years to settle thousands of lawsuits with state, local, and tribal governments accusing it and pharmacy chains of mishandling prescriptions for opioid painkillers.