Gov.-elect Kevin Stitt, R-Oklahoma, speaks beside Alex Azar, secretary of Health and Human Services, during a meeting with governors-elect in the Cabinet Room on Dec. 13, 2018, at the White House in Washington, D.C. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

Johnson & Johnson is fighting a move by Oklahoma's politicians to extend its financial contributions over a period of years as part of a potential $572 million court judgment designed to abate the state's opioid crisis.

On Tuesday, Johnson & Johnson insisted in a court filing that an Oklahoma state court judge who issued the Aug. 26 bench verdict, which it plans to appeal, said the payouts would be good for a year. On Oct. 28, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and the state's two senior legislators filed a proposed amicus brief to clarify that Johnson & Johnson, and not the state's taxpayers, should continue to fund abatement costs over several years.

"The attempt by three Oklahoma politicians to inject themselves into a case where the attorney general has been representing the state since the action was filed in 2017 is unnecessary, redundant, and unpersuasive," wrote Johnson & Johnson lawyer Larry Ottaway of Oklahoma City's Foliart Huff Ottaway & Bottom. Benjamin Odom of Odom, Sparks & Jones in Norman, Oklahoma, and Charles Lifland of O'Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles also represented Johnson & Johnson.

Johnson & Johnson pointed to Cleveland County District Court Judge Thad Balkman's conclusion that there were "gaps in the state's evidence" as to costs beyond one year. Further, at the Aug. 26 hearing, he had specifically stated, "Whether additional programs and funding are needed over an extended period of time, those are determinations to be made by our legislators and policymakers," Johnson & Johnson said.

"Applicants ask this court to make that leap in the belief that placing the costs of an opioid-remediation strategy on the state's shoulders is unfair," Johnson & Johnson's lawyers wrote. "But there is no precedent in American jurisprudence for the remedy they now propose—one that the state raised for the first time only after the court entered its post-trial findings and August 26, 2019 judgment."

Johnson & Johnson said in a statement: "We are awaiting the court's final order. We recognize the opioid crisis is a tremendously complex public health issue and have deep sympathy for everyone affected. We do not believe litigation is the answer and are continuing to work with partners to find solutions."

A representative for Oklahoma's governor did not respond to a request for comment. Oklahoma House of Representatives Speaker Charles McCall and Oklahoma State Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat, who joined the governor in his proposed amicus brief, also did not return calls or declined to comment. All are Republicans.

The filings are the latest in which the Oklahoma Legislature and governor have tried to elbow their way into a public nuisance lawsuit that Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter, also a Republican, brought to abate the opioid crisis in the Sooner State. Earlier this year, the governor and senior legislators intervened in the case after passing a law to ensure that funds from settlements with Purdue Pharma and Teva Pharmaceuticals, which were other defendants in the state's case, went to Oklahoma's treasury.

The filings also come as Balkman is weighing a final judgment after issuing his verdict in the first opioid trial in the nation. The judge concluded that Johnson & Johnson's Janssen Pharmaceuticals' misleading marketing and promotion of opioids created a public nuisance in Oklahoma.

Johnson & Johnson has challenged the judgment, including whether the judge should apply $355 million in credits based on the previous settlements with Teva and Purdue, and whether he miscalculated by $107 million the amount that would go toward treatment of babies addicted to opioids. At an Oct. 15 hearing, Balkman conceded that he made the $107 million mathematical error.

But Johnson & Johnson also has insisted that the judge intended for the judgment, if upheld, to be a one-time remedy.

Hunter, in a filing last month, disagreed. At trial, the state's lawyers had asked for a $17.5 billion abatement plan over 30 years.

"The court cannot stop short of fashioning a remedy that does, in fact, abate the nuisance," wrote the state's outside counsel, Michael Burrage, co-founder of Oklahoma City's Whitten Burrage, in an Oct. 10 brief. "This means that the $572 million funding for one year of the abatement plan cannot be all that J&J is required to pay. This is especially true given that all the state's evidence in the case demonstrates it will take decades to sufficiently abate the nuisance and J&J failed to put on an abatement plan of its own."

He suggested that the judge hold periodic hearings to monitor and examine whether Johnson & Johnson was complying with the abatement plan for however long it takes to end the crisis.

In their proposed amicus brief, the governor and two legislators agreed with Hunter.

"The court cannot shift responsibility for abating the nuisance from the guilty party to the innocent taxpayers of this state," they wrote. "The power to enforce a complete and truly equitable abatement plan lies within the court alone. The legislature is powerless to compel abatement funding from Johnson & Johnson, and believes it fundamentally unwise and unfair to shoulder the citizens of Oklahoma with this burden."

But Johnson & Johnson said the idea of such court oversight raised separation-of-power issues.

"There is no merit to the state's (and applicants') newfound contention that equity inflexibly compels the court to take the helm of massive government programs for decades on end," its lawyers wrote.