The West Virginia Supreme Court said Monday a lower court’s order prohibiting insurers from pursuing litigation against an opioid pharmaceutical distributor in other states was overly broad.

In 2012, West Virginia’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against Conshohocken, Pennsylvania-based AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp., a wholesale distributor of prescription opioid medication in West Virginia, seeking to hold it liable for the prescription opioid epidemic in the state, according to the ruling in St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Co. v. AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp. et. al.

After that litigation was settled, numerous other plaintiffs named ABDC as defendants in as many as 165 similar lawsuits in West Virginia courts, according to the ruling.

The case before the state Supreme Court derived from ABDC’s efforts to establish it has coverage under primary, umbrella and excess commercial general liability policies it had purchased, the ruling said.

In March 2017, it filed a complaint against five insurance companies seeking to establish coverage under 16 policies issued between 2007 and 2013, the ruling said.

In November 2020, one of the insurers, St. Paul, filed a competing insurance coverage action in California state court against ABDC and its corporate subsidiaries seeking a ruling it had no duty to defend or indemnify the company.

Later that month, ABDC filed a motion with the West Virginia circuit court seeking an “anti-suit injunction” enjoining St. Paul and all other parties to the lawsuit from proceeding with the California lawsuit.

In the interim, the circuit court issued an order finding that there was insurance coverage available to ABDC under St. Paul’s policy.

In January, the circuit court granted ABDC’s motion for an anti-suit injunction that prevented all parties for pursuing collateral insurance litigation involving the company in California or elsewhere.

In overturning that ruling on appeal, the Supreme Court said while West Virginia law permits its courts to enjoin parallel cases in other states’ courts, the lower court’s ruling was overly broad.

The order “enjoins all parties to the West Virginia action from instituting or prosecuting any legal proceeding concerning ABC’s insurance coverage.

“Our concern is that ABDC’s West Virginia complaint is limited in scope and seeks a declaratory judgment concerning only sixteen insurance policies by five insurance companies,” it said.

The circuit court’s order “impairs the parties’ ability to litigate against each other or with third parties, over policies separate from the sixteen policies identified by ABDC,” the ruling said, in reversing the lower court and remanding the case for further proceedings.

Attorneys in the case did not respond to requests for comment.