On March 3, 2026, a Suffolk County Supreme Court judge gave the go-ahead for a sweeping coalition of New York cities, towns and counties to keep pursuing their 2021 lawsuit accusing McKinsey & Company of helping Purdue Pharma "turbocharge" OxyContin sales. Justice Joseph C. Pastoressa largely refused McKinsey’s attempt to toss the case, allowing claims for negligence, fraud, deceptive practices and public nuisance to move forward. He did, however, throw out an unjust-enrichment claim and ruled that a bid for punitive damages is blocked by an earlier state consent judgment. Local governments say the decision clears the way for discovery that could expose internal McKinsey records and emails.
The ruling, issued by Justice Pastoressa on March 3 and summarized by Justia, leans heavily on the procedural posture. Because the case is still at the pleading stage, the court applied a liberal reading of the complaint and declined to dismiss most of the causes of action. The judge said the municipalities had plausibly alleged that McKinsey did far more than spitball strategy ideas and was effectively embedded in Purdue’s sales operation, assisting in the rollout of aggressive marketing tactics.
What plaintiffs allege
The 2021 complaint, brought by the City of New York along with a broad group of local governments, centers on a consulting plan dubbed "Project Turbocharge," later rebranded as "Evolve to Excellence." According to the filing, McKinsey helped Purdue zero in on so-called "high-value" prescribers, play down addiction risks and push for higher doses and more prescriptions to juice OxyContin sales. The municipalities link those tactics to spiraling costs for treatment programs, emergency response and law enforcement that they say have hammered local budgets. Those allegations are laid out in the complaint filed with the NYC Law Department and echo language the Department of Justice used when describing McKinsey’s 2013 work for Purdue in a 2024 statement by the DOJ.
Court trimmed some claims
McKinsey did notch a couple of wins. The court held that the unjust-enrichment count could not stand because the plaintiffs had not shown the type of relationship that quasi-contract theory requires, and it dismissed that claim outright. Justice Pastoressa also agreed that punitive damages are off the table, finding they are barred by res judicata in light of an earlier state consent judgment. Even so, the heart of the case remains intact, with fraud, public nuisance and several other claims surviving. The court’s legal analysis is spelled out in the decision posted on Justia.
Discovery and next steps
With most of the complaint surviving, the lawsuit now moves toward discovery, where the real trench warfare begins. The municipalities are expected to seek internal McKinsey documents, slide decks and emails that they say will shed light on what the firm knew, when it knew it and how deeply it was involved in Purdue’s marketing machine. Co-counsel Napoli Shkolnik, which represents many of the local governments, emphasized in its write-up that "McKinsey was not a passive adviser" and argued that the ruling will force the consulting giant to open up its files. Napoli Shkolnik noted that the case is now squarely positioned for discovery.
Legal implications
The decision underscores that local governments can still bring their own civil suits even after big-ticket multistate and federal resolutions have been signed. In 2021, Attorney General Letitia James co-led a multistate consent judgment with McKinsey that steered more than $573 million to states nationwide, with roughly $32 million earmarked for New York, according to the New York AG. Then, in December 2024, the DOJ announced a separate $650 million resolution addressing criminal and civil investigations into McKinsey’s role in Purdue’s effort to "turbocharge" opioid sales.
Those earlier settlements may limit some of the remedies available, particularly when it comes to punitive measures, but the Suffolk County ruling still opens a path for New York municipalities to chase damages tailored to the specific fallout in their communities.
The case now heads into what could be a long and combative discovery phase, and the volume of new evidence that surfaces may influence not only this lawsuit but other opioid cases around the country and the scope of any eventual relief for local governments. For the first local write-up on the court’s decision, see amNewYork.
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