In a marked shift from the first hearing in the opioid litigation, a federal judge praised lawyers for getting closer to reaching a global settlement to address the epidemic.

“Judge Ruiz and I want to thank everyone for all the hard work that all of you have been doing over the past several months,” said U.S. District Judge Dan Polster, referring to U.S. Magistrate Judge David Ruiz, at a rare public court proceeding on Thursday morning. The courtroom was standing room only, with two overflow rooms and, according to Cleveland.com, a few dozen protesters gathered outside the Cleveland courthouse.

Earlier this year, at the only other public hearing in the litigation, Polster ordered lawyers immediately into settlement talks, insisting he wasn't interested in “a whole lot of finger-pointing,” discovery, trials or answers to “interesting legal questions.” On Thursday, the judge emphasized that, although he ordered discovery to go forward on a limited basis last month, including a trial planned in March 2019, he remained focused on reaching a settlement.

“We have a litigation track, it's proceeding, but I see it as an aid in settlement discussions,” he said. “It's necessary to do it, and we're doing it, but it's not a substitute or replacement in any way. And I still am resolved to be the catalyst to take some steps this year to turn the trajectory of this epidemic down, rather than up, up, up.”

Polster also noted that he had met with U.S. Department of Justice officials and representatives “of several federal agencies” last week. “We had a good discussion,” he said.

The DOJ has been primarily involved in the multidistrict litigation by providing a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency database that tracks sales and distribution of opioids, which are prescription painkillers. Last month, Polster ordered the federal government to provide plaintiffs attorneys with data from the so-called Automated Records and Consolidated Orders System, or ARCOS, database in the six states in which he has ordered discovery: Alabama, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, West Virginia and Florida. But on Tuesday, he expanded that order to include all 50 states, noting that “the ARCOS data is allowing both the litigation and settlement tracks of this MDL to proceed based on meaningful, objective data, not conjecture or speculation.”

Thursday's hearing came two days after members of the House Energy and Commerce's Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee grilled executives on Capitol Hill about their roles in the opioid epidemic. George Barrett, chairman of Cardinal Health Inc., apologized for not doing more to stop shipments of millions of opioids to many of the hardest hit states but, along with executives from three other companies, refused to acknowledge the distributor's role in the epidemic. Only one executive, Joseph Mastandrea, chairman of pharmaceutical firm Miami-Luken Inc., admitted his company was to blame.

Back in court, lawyers had private talks following the public portion of Thursday's hearing, which lasted half an hour. At the hearing, Duke Law School professor Francis McGovern, one of three special masters in the litigation, gave an update on the settlement talks. He said the various groups of plaintiffs, which includes cities, counties, states, Native American tribes and hospitals, had coalesced around a discussion that focused on “prospective injunctive relief.”

“And we have seen a substantial amount of progress in understanding the issues, understanding the potential methods of resolving any disputes that may exist concerning those issues, and explored a variety of compromises and have had what I would consider to be in my experience very fruitful, very open, very cooperative discussions,” he said.

Meanwhile, discovery was moving forward. Another special master, David Cohen, said that new plaintiffs had joined the mix with class actions brought on behalf of babies born addicted to opioids and anyone who has paid increasing health insurance premiums linked to the epidemic.

“That's something the court is going to have to get its hands around,” he said. “This is obviously one of the most, if not the most, complex litigations that the federal courts have seen.”

A Nebraska attorney told Polster that Native American tribes, disproportionately affected by the opioid epidemic, should be pursuing their cases on a separate litigation track. Many of those tribes are fighting to remain in state or tribal courts, rather than in the MDL.

“Those people have been marginalized in every single thing that has happened in the history of the United States, and they want to not be marginalized in this proceeding,” said David Domina of the Domina Law Group in Omaha, Nebraska. He filed a lawsuit last month on behalf of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska.

Complicating the case was Polster's order this week expanding the ARCOS data. Cohen and co-lead plaintiffs attorney Joseph Rice of Motley Rice said the plaintiffs executive committee had been inundated with requests from other plaintiffs lawyers for the data, particularly since many were planning to amend their complaints to add or subtract defendants based on what the data revealed. Some cities and counties have already done so—but under seal, prompting a rebuke from Polster. He ordered lawyers to file redacted versions later this month.

“I was driving in today and there was a story on NPR that said the amended complaints had been filed under seal—so no one knows what it is,” he said