First up this week is a pro bono team at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler that teamed up with the Center for Constitutional Rights to represent three Iraqi detainees who were tortured at Abu Ghraib prison two decades ago. After a six-day trial in Alexandria, Virginia, federal jurors this week found that government contractor CACI Premier Technology conspired with military personnel to torture detainees at the prison and awarded the plaintiffs a total of $42 million in damages. Patterson Belknap has dedicated more than 22,000 hours to the case since signing on in 2012. The team representing the plaintiffs included Patterson Belknap partners Muhammad Faridi and Michael Buchanan as well as Baher Azmy and Katie Gallagher of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Shereef Akeel of Akeel & Valentine and solo practitioners Charles Molster III and Mohammed Alomari.

A Susman Godfrey team led by partner Bill Carmody secured a $266 million verdict against McKesson Corp. and AmerisourceBergen for the city of Baltimore in a trial seeking to hold the drug distributors liable for the public nuisance created by the opioid epidemic. The city, which opted out of the broader opioid settlement in multidistrict litigation, previously reached $402.5 million in publicly announced settlements with other defendants before this week’s verdict. The Susman team also includes partners Seth Ard, Sy Polky, Michael Kelso, Adam Carlis, Cory Buland, Geng Chen, Rocco Magni, Krisina Zuñiga, of counsel Tom Boardman and associates Max Straus, Katherine Drews and Jeff Melsheimer.