The Supreme Court did not give the Sacklers immunity, nor did it decide whether claims against them were valid. On June 27, 2024, it ruled that Chapter 11 did not let a bankruptcy court impose releases blocking opioid-related claims against the non-debtor family members without the affected claimants’ consent. That ruling overturned the release structure in Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy plan; a replacement $7.4 billion settlement took effect on May 1, 2026.
What did the Supreme Court decide?
In Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P., No. 23-124, the Court answered a narrow question: whether the Bankruptcy Code authorizes a court to release claims against someone who is not a debtor, without the consent of those affected. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion for the Court concluded that it does not. The Court reversed the Second Circuit’s judgment and sent the case back. Read the opinion or check the Supreme Court docket.
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The ruling was about bankruptcy-court authority to impose those releases—not whether any particular opioid-related claim against a Sackler family member would succeed. The Court did not decide the underlying claims on their merits.
Why did the original Purdue plan fall apart?
Purdue Pharma filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2019 amid opioid litigation. Its proposed plan paired approximately $4.3 billion in contributions from the Sacklers, who were not themselves bankruptcy debtors, with releases and injunctions that would have blocked opioid-related claims against them. The Supreme Court rejected that nonconsensual release arrangement.
In practical terms, the plan could not use Purdue’s bankruptcy case to bar affected people’s claims against non-debtors without their consent. The ruling did not end Purdue’s bankruptcy or prevent the parties from reaching a later settlement through a different plan and legal route.
What happened to the settlement after the ruling?
The bankruptcy court approved a replacement plan in November 2025. The Purdue Personal Injury Trust says the Eighteenth Amended Joint Chapter 11 Plan became effective on May 1, 2026. On that date, state attorneys general also announced that the $7.4 billion Purdue/Sackler settlement had gone into effect. The trust provides plan and administration information; the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General published an effective-date announcement.
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This later settlement is not a Supreme Court-approved version of the original plan. The Court decided the legality of the earlier nonconsensual releases in 2024; it did not rule on the terms or approval of the replacement plan that became effective in 2026.
What the ruling means—and what it does not
- It rejected a particular bankruptcy tool. A Chapter 11 plan could not force releases of claims against the non-debtor Sacklers without the affected claimants’ consent under the provision considered by the Court.
- It did not establish liability. The decision did not determine the merits of individual claims or find any Sackler liable for a particular claimant’s harm.
- It did not prohibit every later settlement. The 2026 settlement is a subsequent development, not something the Court authorized or decided in its 2024 opinion.
- It did not end Purdue’s bankruptcy process. A replacement plan was later approved and took effect.
The public-health context in the opinion
The Court’s opinion cited the bankruptcy court record for an estimate that approximately 247,000 people in the United States died from prescription-opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2019. That figure concerns prescription-opioid overdoses in that period; it is not a count of all deaths associated with the broader opioid epidemic.
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