AMNA NAWAZ: The Supreme Court has temporarily blocked a bankruptcy plan for drugmaker Purdue Pharma, a plan that would have paid out billions of dollars to address the opioid epidemic, but would have also shielded the company's owners, the Sackler family, from legal liability.

William Brangham has more on the implications.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Amna, this controversial bankruptcy plan was stalled because the U.S. Justice Department argued that shielding the Sacklers from all future lawsuits was an abuse of the bankruptcy system.

The Sacklers themselves did not declare bankruptcy.

But that delay means that at least $6 billion in relief is not going to communities all over the country to help them address the addiction and overdose crisis.

NPR's Brian Mann has been covering all of this closely.

And he joins us now.

Brian, welcome back to the "NewsHour."

We thought this was a settled issue.

Several judges had signed off on this.

So help us understand, what happened at the Supreme Court yesterday?

BRIAN MANN, NPR: Yes, this surprised a lot of legal experts that the Supreme Court was willing to take this on.

In the past, the Supreme Court has often been reluctant to wade into issues dealing with bankruptcy.

It's a messy legal area.

But this -- the Department of Justice, the DOJ had repeatedly made strong legal arguments that what was happening here would create a kind of road map where more and more nonbankrupt companies, very wealthy individuals, like the Sacklers, could begin using the really awesome power of bankruptcy to avoid accountability, to limit their liability.

They would essentially pay in billions of dollars, as in this case, but, in exchange, be able to walk away free of all future civil claims.

And the DOJ convinced enough justices to look at this that now we're going to see a full hearing in December.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Is that a legitimate fear?

I mean, are there examples of other companies that have done what they're -- what they're talking about?

BRIAN MANN: Absolutely.

Over the last five to 10 years, and really more intensely over the last two to three years, a lot of very wealthy corporations and individuals have begun finding loopholes in federal bankruptcy law, maneuvers in federal bankruptcy law that allowed them to kind of tap into this.

We saw Johnson & Johnson, for example, the fabulously wealthy corporation, create a subsidiary, push it into bankruptcy, and then try to piggyback on that bankruptcy in order to block tens of thousands of lawsuits linked to claims that it's baby powder -- talc baby powder caused ovarian cancer.

Maneuvers like that are more and more common.

And you have a lot of legal scholars, a lot of members of Congress saying, wait a minute.

Wasn't bankruptcy just supposed to be for actual bankrupt, insolvent companies?

And now we see the Supreme Court saying, yes, maybe this is a question we need to look at.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Back to this, the particular case with Purdue Pharma.

This original deal as agreed to was liability for the Sacklers, but the Sacklers will put in $6 billion and give that out to communities all over the country to address addiction and overdoses.

What are those communities and states and tribes all saying now that this deal has been put on hold?

BRIAN MANN: You know, it's been fascinating, William, to see the conflict within the victim community, the opioid victim community and among these communities.

Many of them have said: We don't really think this looks like justice, where the Sacklers are concerned, that they will get to now walk away from this opioid epidemic essentially free after paying out this money.

On the other hand, they desperately need the cash.

You know, $750 million was supposed to go to families of people who died from OxyContin overdoses, people who lost years of their lives to this addiction epidemic, billions going to communities for addiction health treatment programs.

And, right now, there's a lot of dismay that that money is going to be on hold, again, at least through December, when the Supreme Court is going to review this, and likely much longer.

This deal has been held up for years with legal wrangling and delays.

And people are impatient.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I mean, this has always been the central tension with this struggle, the very tangible anger against the Sacklers, because there's a fairly good documentary trail that they knew how much problem their drugs were causing, and yet they continued to push them, and yet these communities all over the country who are desperate for this kind of aid.

Will the Supreme Court in the end make a resolution about this?

What are we likely to see when they make a ruling?

BRIAN MANN: What we're likely to see is pretty -- pretty big.

This is really -- in some ways, it could change the way justice works in America.

Right now, a lot of people are using the -- again, the really awesome power of bankruptcy that can force people to make settlements, force people to give up lawsuits.

And, again, usually that's reserved for bankrupt companies, insolvent individuals.

But, in recent years, some parts of the country, appeals courts have allowed bankruptcy judges to approve deals like this.

And in some parts of the country, bankruptcy judges have said, no, this power isn't in the law.

And so what the Supreme Court is now likely to do is resolve this nationally, either open the door to bankruptcy courts being able to do deals like this, cut arrangements like this with people like the Sacklers, with companies like Johnson & Johnson and Purdue Pharma.

They may say yes, and open the floodgates.

Or it's possible they will say, no, this is not what bankruptcy was meant to do.

This bankruptcy was meant for insolvent companies, not for wealthy people trying to essentially pay their way out of a lot of lawsuits.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Brian Mann of National Public Radio, thank you so much, as always, for helping us get through this.

BRIAN MANN: Thank you, William.

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