On March 13, 2023, just a week after announcing the creation of the Opioid Epidemic Civil Litigation Task Force, the Department of Justice intervened in an FCA suit in the Northern District of Ohio against Rite Aid Corporation and several of its subsidiaries, alleging that the pharmacy chain knowingly filled unlawful prescriptions for controlled substances, including opioids. The suit was initially filed in 2019 by three former Rite Aid pharmacists. In addition to joining the relators' FCA claims, DOJ asserts violations of the Controlled Substances Act ("CSA") for dispensing controlled substances pursuant to prescriptions that were issued without a legitimate medical purpose and outside the usual course of professional practice.
DOJ's complaint-in-intervention alleges that Rite Aid filled hundreds of thousands of unlawful prescriptions from May 2014 through June 2019, despite knowing that those prescriptions lacked a legitimate medical purpose, were not for a medically accepted indication or were not issued in the course of professional practice. DOJ alleges that Rite Aid pharmacists filled those prescriptions despite obvious "red flags" indicating that the prescriptions were unlawful. Those "red flags" included: (1) prescriptions for a combination of drugs known as "the trinity"—a dangerous combination of an opioid, a benzodiazepine and a muscle relaxant known to be highly abused;
(2) prescriptions for "early fills" and excessive quantities of opioids; (3) prescriptions...
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