Mary Anne Blanton watched her mother Tammy’s life fall apart over years of opioid use that began with migraine treatments, leaving her isolated from family and unable to work before her accidental death in 2017 at age 58.
Medical records show Tammy received opioid prescriptions from various doctors for decades, averaging more than 200 pills monthly during a two-year stretch. A medical examiner determined that oxycodone and extended-release morphine, combined with alcohol and anti-anxiety medications, led to her death.
When Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019, Blanton thought her mother’s case would qualify for compensation from the company whose OxyContin painkiller has been widely blamed for sparking the opioid epidemic. Purdue admitted wrongdoing and promised to pay those who suffered harm.
Although opioid-related lawsuits have produced over $57 billion in settlements primarily going to government entities, Purdue’s bankruptcy agreement stands alone in dedicating substantial funds—approximately $865 million—directly to individuals affected by opioids.
This compensation fund represents the final opportunity for opioid crisis victims to receive individual payments. The extensive legal battles that once targeted major drug manufacturers, distributors and pharmacy chains have mostly concluded, with no similar individual victim fund expected in the future.
However, Blanton and countless others now find their hopes fading. A Reuters investigation examining six years of bankruptcy records, including hundreds of court documents, over 100 victim letters, and interviews with eight affected individuals and attorneys, reveals how the lengthy legal process created significant obstacles for those seeking compensation.
Blanton joins many who may receive nothing because they cannot document that Purdue specifically manufactured the pills they or their family members used, rather than generic alternatives. Numerous individuals initially filed claims without supporting documentation, only to discover years later that necessary records had been destroyed.
Proving use of Purdue-manufactured opioids presents major challenges years after the fact. Medical records typically note the prescribed drug but not its manufacturer. Insurance providers often direct patients toward generic versions for cost savings. Pharmacies may change suppliers frequently, and most states don’t require doctors, hospitals, pharmacies or insurers to maintain records beyond several years.
“To me, it’s irrelevant whether Purdue manufactured her specific prescription — it ultimately came from them,” Blanton said. Purdue told “everybody that they were safe and not addictive. They created this mess.”
The Sackler family, which owned Purdue, directed inquiries to the company. Purdue declined repeated requests for comment.
The documentation requirement was built into the bankruptcy plan Purdue negotiated with creditors, reflecting the company’s position that it should only be liable for harm directly linked to its products.
Victims and their attorneys argue that Purdue and the Sackler family should bear broader responsibility for igniting an opioid epidemic through aggressive and deceptive marketing that promoted widespread prescription painkiller use, including generics, with many patients eventually turning to illegal substances.
Purdue has pleaded guilty twice to federal criminal charges related to OxyContin marketing, acknowledging it misled regulators, doctors and patients about addiction risks while engaging in illegal practices to increase opioid sales.
When the company entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy, people claiming harm from its opioid medications became creditors in the case, placed in the same legal category as states, cities and other governments that had sued the company.
In March 2021, when Purdue unveiled its initial bankruptcy plan, board chairman Steve Miller called it “historic” and said it would have “a profoundly positive impact on public health by directing critically-needed resources to communities and individuals nationwide.”
Purdue urged individuals to submit claims. Nearly 140,000 people did so by the September 2021 deadline, completing a seven-page form that didn’t require detailed documentation. Some claims came from attorneys representing multiple clients, but many were filed by people battling addiction or unable to afford legal representation.
Purdue’s bankruptcy then stretched on for years, becoming entangled in appeals that ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The settlement was negotiated privately through confidential mediation sessions as part of a complex bankruptcy that generated more than 9,000 court filings.
In May 2025, nearly four years after the claim filing deadline passed, a trustee appointed to manage the fund requested for the first time that people provide records proving Purdue manufactured the drugs that caused their harm. He established a 60-day deadline. The extended delay increased the likelihood that requested documents would no longer be available from doctors, pharmacies or insurers, which typically only retain records for a few years.
An earlier plan version would have allowed people without prescription records to qualify for a $3,500 payment by signing a sworn statement saying they used the drug. People with records and more severe harm could qualify for up to $48,000, according to court documents. But after the appeals process, the revised deal restricted payouts only to people with records. The change wasn’t discussed publicly in court, which ProPublica first reported Thursday.
Ed Neiger, an attorney who helped represent approximately 30,000 victims, said plaintiffs’ lawyers tried to make proof requirements as flexible as possible but faced demands from other attorneys negotiating the bankruptcy settlement that claimants provide evidence similar to what would be required in a lawsuit. “We couldn’t get it to a point where you could get recovery without a prescription. And the option was either, you know, blow up the settlement or take the concessions that you were able to extract.”
Despite its limitations, the Purdue settlement provides an easier compensation path than traditional litigation, Neiger said. Individual lawsuits against Purdue or the Sackler family would likely take years, cost substantial amounts and require far more detailed evidence, with no guarantee of success. No individual has ever successfully sued the Sacklers or Purdue over personal opioid addiction.
Nevertheless, U.S. District Judge Sean Lane in White Plains, New York, who oversees Purdue’s bankruptcy, has already rejected more than 40% of filed claims.
Even for those whose claims receive approval, compensation is expected to be relatively modest. Purdue estimated in December that eligible individuals could receive approximately $8,000 or $16,000, depending on how long opioids were prescribed. These figures are estimates and could increase if fewer claimants ultimately meet documentation requirements, since the money pool would be divided among fewer people.
Purdue sold extended-release morphine under the MS Contin brand and later extended-release oxycodone as OxyContin—the same drugs Blanton said her mother consumed in large quantities over decades. She said in an interview that she knows her mother took some Purdue-manufactured pills but couldn’t prove Purdue made the morphine or oxycodone her mother used. While Purdue developed and first marketed both drugs, many other companies later received approval to sell generic versions.
Following her mother’s death, Blanton began searching for records from doctors, hospitals and pharmacies to support her claim but said much of the required information either no longer exists or was never recorded initially. Tammy’s primary care physician had legally destroyed her records, Blanton said, and hospital records she obtained often didn’t identify the manufacturer. She was also unable to obtain records from Arizona’s Medicaid program, which paid for most of her mother’s prescriptions, because of documentation hurdles tied to proof of next-of-kin status and privacy rules.
Purdue says it has adopted a flexible documentation approach, accepting various evidence including prescription records, references to Purdue opioids in other qualifying documents, or photographs of prescription bottles. In a January court filing, the company described its requirements as “flexible and far less onerous” than the proof a plaintiff would need in a lawsuit.
Michele Capozzi-Pollock, a 59-year-old Massachusetts resident whose husband died after years of opioid use, laughed when told pill bottles could be used as claim proof. “Like I’m going to save 16 years’ worth of prescription bottles,” she said in an interview.
Capozzi-Pollock said she was told the claim would be denied because she didn’t respond to the documentation request sent last summer and addressed to her husband three years after his death.
“How much time do I put towards this, and energy and money, just to get to the end and then have them say, ‘No, denied’?”
When Purdue asked the bankruptcy court in January to dismiss more than 57,000 claims from people who didn’t respond to the trustee’s May 2025 documentation request, hundreds of victims sent protest letters to the court.
Their letters describe not only difficulty obtaining records but basic confusion about how the settlement operates.
“I am at a loss and do not know what to do,” wrote Terry Hughes, an inmate at Huttonsville Correctional Center in West Virginia, in a February 20 letter to the bankruptcy court. Hughes said the pharmacy where he filled opioid prescriptions had closed years ago.
Michael Galipeau, a 41-year-old Red Hook, New York resident, received an email in January with the subject line: “Purdue Pharma L.P., et al., Case No. 19-23649 Omnibus Claims Objection to Unsubstantiated Claims,” almost six years after filing his claim.
Galipeau, who has battled opioid addiction for nearly two decades, became dependent on painkillers prescribed for a broken wrist in 2007, served prison time for drug dealing, and now counsels people recovering from addiction.
Only after reaching page 3,024 of a 17,101-page PDF attachment did he see the words: “Claimant failed to provide information to substantiate claim.”
In an interview, Galipeau, who attended a February 26 court hearing in White Plains, said he tried to argue to Lane, the presiding judge, that the settlement’s documentation requirements were too restrictive. Lane interrupted him and moved on to other speakers, including dozens who joined by Zoom.
During the hearing, the judge acknowledged the frustration many people expressed—over bureaucratic complexity and a sense that the process had left ordinary victims without guidance or recourse. Still, he agreed to Purdue’s request to dismiss nearly all of the 57,000 claims.
Lane declined to comment.
The hearing, which Reuters monitored by phone, was one of several scheduled for this spring and summer as the court considers whether to dismiss tens of thousands of remaining claims.
Not everyone will be excluded. Jill Cichowicz, a 47-year-old Richmond, Virginia resident who lost her twin brother Scott to an overdose in 2017, said she has records showing he was prescribed OxyContin and expects to qualify for payment. She said Scott kept detailed notes about the drugs he was taking and that her family hired an investigator and saved pill bottles listing Purdue as the manufacturer after his death—advantages she said many families lack. “I don’t think the average person that’s battling addiction is keeping, you know, copious records and Excel spreadsheets of everything they’re taking,” Cichowicz said. “I think they’re just trying to survive.”
