Association for Accessible Medicines v. James, No. 19-183 (2d Cir. 2020)
Annotate this Case
New York State appealed from the district court's consolidated judgments invalidating the State's Opioid Stewardship Act (OSA), which requires opioid manufacturers and distributors to make an annual payment to fund statewide opioid-related services but prohibits them from passing the costs of those payments through to their customers.
The Second Circuit held that the OSA's opioid stewardship payment is a tax within the meaning of the Tax Injunction Act (TIA), and that the district court should have dismissed plaintiff's challenges to the payment under the TIA for lack of jurisdiction. After considering the factors in Entergy Nuclear Vt. Yankee, LLC v. Shumlin, 737 F.3d 228, 232–33 (2d Cir. 2013), and San Juan Cellular Telephone Co. v. Public Service Commission, 967 F.2d 683, 685 (1st Cir. 1992), the court concluded that the primary purpose of the opioid stewardship payment is to raise revenue, not to punish or regulate plaintiffs and other licensees who are required to make the payment. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgments, except insofar as they relate to the pass-through prohibition, which is not before the court.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.