An Oklahoma judge on Monday ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $572.1 million to the state for its part in fueling an opioid epidemic by deceptively marketing addictive painkillers, a sum that was substantially less than investors had expected, driving up J&J’s shares.

The state’s attorney general had filed the lawsuit, seeking $17 billion to address the impact of the drug crisis on Oklahoma. It had been considered a bellwether for other litigation nationwide over the opioid epidemic.
“The expectation was this was going to be a $1.5 billion to $2 billion fine,” said Jared Holz, healthcare strategist for Jefferies & Co. “$572 million is a much lower number than had been feared.”

Opioids were involved in almost 400,000 overdose deaths from 1999 to 2017, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since 2000, some 6,000 Oklahomans have died from opioid overdoses, according to the state’s lawyers.

Roughly 2,500 lawsuits have been brought by states, counties and municipalities nationally seeking to hold drugmakers responsible for opioid abuse nationwide. Oklahoma’s case was the first to go to trial. Some drugmakers have chosen to settle cases.

In holding J&J liable after a seven-week, non-jury trial, Judge Thad Balkman of Cleveland County District Court in Norman, Oklahoma, said the state proved that J&J’s misleading marketing and promotion of its Duragesic and Nucynta painkillers created a public nuisance.

Some plaintiffs’ lawyers have compared the opioid cases to litigation by states against the tobacco industry that led to a $246 billion settlement in 1998.