This is the best summary I could come up with:

A divided Supreme Court on Thursday blocked a controversial proposed Purdue Pharma bankruptcy plan that would have provided billions of dollars to help address the nation’s opioid crisis in exchange for protecting the family that owns the company from future lawsuits.

The justices ruled that U.S. bankruptcy code does not allow a court to shield the Sackler family, which owns the company and had agreed to pay up to $6 billion over 18 years as part of the plan, from future opioid lawsuits.

The ruling means states and other parties suing Purdue will restart negotiations, the latest chapter in the national reckoning over the role of drugmakers and other companies in igniting the epidemic of addiction and overdoses.

“No one has directed us to a statute or case suggesting American courts in the past enjoyed the power in bankruptcy to discharge [such] claims … all without the consent of those affected,” wrote Gorsuch, who was joined by Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Clarence Thomas, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Amy Coney Barrett.

The legal issue before the Supreme Court in Harrington v. Purdue Pharma was whether, according to federal bankruptcy laws, the Sacklers could be shielded from future opioid-related litigation filed by those who do not consent to give up their rights to sue.

Unless settlements are hashed out this summer, those lawsuits consolidated in the Ohio multidistrict litigation will proceed in September, said Jayne Conroy, a lead attorney who serves on a committee representing opioid plaintiffs.

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