My colleague Amanda Bronstad has coverage here of the $572 million judgment against Johnson & Johnson in the first big opioid case to go to trial.

I'd have been stunned if J&J hadn't gotten dinged, although not necessarily because they deserved it. The company had a solid argument that its products—a fentanyl-based skin patch called Duragesic and a tapentadol-based tablet called Nucynta—had a minuscule market share, came with exhaustive FDA-approved labeling, and were designed to be difficult to abuse. 

But when you put a rich, out-of-state corporation on trial in front of an elected judge in an area hit hard by the opioid epidemic—is anyone surprised Cleveland County District Court Judge Thad Balkman ruled against J&J?

It could have been worse though. The Oklahoma AG's office wanted J&J to foot the bill for a $17.5 billion abatement plan over 30 years. By comparison, $572 million doesn't look so bad.

Indeed, as Reuters reporter Tom Hals pointed out, J&J's market cap gained about $13 billion after the decision.

Still, the co-defendants who settled—Teva for $85 million and Purdue for $270 million—got off the hook for far less. At least for now.

J&J seem to have been positioning the case for appeal since Day One. The company was represented at trial by Oklahoma City's Foliart Huff Ottaway & Bottom and O'Melveny & Myers lawyers including Sabrina Strong, Steve Brody and Michael Yoder. 

Strong's  law firm bio is telling: "Sabrina is regularly called upon to actively litigate cases as appellate counsel throughout trial for high-exposure matters across a wide variety of industries."

The question now is how well she and the team have positioned J&J for appeal.