TASK DEFINITION: Given a paragraph and a claim, classify it this way: If the claim contradicts the evidence present in the paragraph, classify the claim as '0'. If the claim has multiple supporting *AND* contradicting evidences, classify the claim as '1'. If the claim has supporting evidence and the paragraph is in overall favor of the claim, then classify the claim as '2'.
PROBLEM: Paragraph: U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross is expected in July to decide whether to halt more than 160 active lawsuits brought by state attorneys general, cities and counties against opioid manufacturer Insys Therapeutics Inc. When it filed for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware earlier this month, Insys requested the cases be paused. A bankruptcy filing would normally halt active litigation immediately, giving a company such as Insys time to reorganize and preserve money that would otherwise be spent fighting the cases. But a longstanding exception in U.S. bankruptcy law can keep the lawsuits alive if they are enforcing government officials’ “police or regulatory power.” The exception holds that government actions seeking to enforce laws related to matters such as public health and safety are not automatically stopped by a company’s bankruptcy filing as other lawsuits are. State and local officials are suing Insys and other drugmakers in an attempt to address harm from an opioid crisis that has killed nearly 400,000 people between 1999 and 2017. More than half these deaths resulted from prescription painkillers, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For a graphic, click tmsnrt.rs/2EgfT0n  “Criminal enterprises … should not be permitted to shield themselves from the consequences of their misconduct by running to bankruptcy court and obtaining the equivalent of a stay that allows them to evade justice,” said Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh in a Tuesday legal filing opposing Insys’s request to halt lawsuits. The opioid crisis “is a national public health emergency,” they said in the filing, which other state attorneys general supported, including those in New York, New Jersey and Arizona. “The interests of the public therefore are served by allowing these police powers actions of the states to continue unfettered by the injunctions that Insys seeks.”  A spokesman for Insys, which faces trials in Maryland and Minnesota beginning in August, declined to comment beyond the company’s court filings. Insys already had reached a $225 million settlement before filing for bankruptcy with the U.S. Justice Department, admitting to illegal conduct in resolving claims that it bribed doctors to write prescriptions, including medically unnecessary ones, for a fentanyl spray called Subsys designed to treat cancer pain. The Chandler, Arizona-based company still faces, overall, more than 1,000 lawsuits raising similar allegations of deception and fraud in marketing its opioids. The misconduct occurred under a prior management team that has since “entirely turned over” and Insys is now committed to lawful marketing practices, the company said in court papers. Insys contends in bankruptcy-court filings that Judge Gross should halt the lawsuits against it regardless of any exceptions, lest the company drain limited financial resources fighting cases on multiple fronts. Allowing the cases to continue would leave less money for creditors, including the very government officials seeking to hold it to account, Insys contends, adding that its request is not an attempt to escape liability. It had less than $40 million in the bank when filing for bankruptcy and predicts spending up to $9 million through December to continue fighting lawsuits, according to court papers. The judge’s ruling is expected to influence whether another opioid manufacturer facing 2,000 lawsuits - OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP - decides to file for bankruptcy protection, according to a person familiar with the matter and legal experts. A Purdue spokesman declined to comment. A ruling allowing the Insys litigation to proceed could discourage Purdue from seeking bankruptcy protection, while pausing the cases might signal that Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings are a viable way to halt lawsuits and take advantage of breathing room to reach a broader settlement with plaintiffs, according to the person familiar with the matter and several legal experts. Insys lawyers are attempting to persuade government officials to agree to voluntarily halt their cases, according to a bankruptcy-court filing. Insys is nearing a deal that would effectively halt some of those legal claims against the drugmaker that are consolidated in an Ohio federal court, said Paul Hanly, a lead lawyer for plaintiffs in the opioid litigation. An Insys spokesman declined to comment on the potential agreement. Insys has some legal precedent backing its approach. In 2017, a bankruptcy judge sided with Takata Corp when temporarily halting lawsuits brought by Hawaii, New Mexico and the U.S. Virgin Islands against the Japanese supplier of automobile airbags that exploded, finding that allowing the litigation to continue threatened the company’s reorganization. That would have harmed creditors, including those seeking to hold Takata accountable for widespread deaths and injuries, the judge ruled. The ruling allowed Takata to focus on completing a sale to a rival, creating a combined company called Joyson Safety Systems. A Joyson representative declined to comment. The Minnesota and Maryland attorneys general argued in their legal filing on Tuesday that Insys has not demonstrated the kind of exceptional circumstances present in the Takata case - an unprecedented automotive recall - that warranted halting government lawsuits. While the outcome in the Insys case is not critical for opioid manufacturers with stronger balance sheets that face lawsuits, such as Johnson & Johnson, it holds significance for the likes of OxyContin maker Purdue, according to several legal experts. In March, Reuters reported that Purdue was exploring filing for bankruptcy protection to address lawsuits alleging it pushed prescription painkillers while downplaying their abuse and overdose risks, according to people familiar with the matter. Purdue’s CEO later confirmed the company was considering a bankruptcy filing. The company has denied allegations it contributed to the opioid crisis, pointing to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approving labels on its drugs carrying warnings about risk and abuse associated with treating pain. Claim: Fate of opioid litigation hinges on government 'police power'.

SOLUTION: 2

PROBLEM: Paragraph: The verdict, in California Superior Court in Oakland, marks the latest defeat for the healthcare conglomerate facing more than 13,000 talc-related lawsuits nationwide. J&J said it would appeal, citing “serious procedural and evidentiary errors” in the course of the trial, saying lawyers for the woman had fundamentally failed to show its baby powder contains asbestos. The company did not provide further details of the alleged errors during the trial. “We respect the legal process and reiterate that jury verdicts are not medical, scientific or regulatory conclusions about a product,” J&J said in a statement on Wednesday. The New Brunswick, New Jersey-based company denies that its talc causes cancer, saying numerous studies and tests by regulators worldwide have shown that its talc is safe and asbestos-free. The lawsuit was brought by Terry Leavitt, who said she used Johnson’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower - another powder containing talc sold by J&J in the past - in the 1960s and 1970s and was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2017. It was the first of more than a dozen J&J talc cases scheduled for trial in 2019. The nine-week trial began on Jan. 7 and included testimony from nearly a dozen experts on both sides. The jury deliberated for two days before delivering its verdict, which was broadcast online by Courtroom View Network. Jurors found that J&J’s talc-based products used by Leavitt were defective and that the company had failed to warn consumers of the health risks, awarding $29.4 million in damages to Leavitt and her husband. The jury declined to award punitive damages. “Yet another jury has rejected J&J’s misleading claims that its talc was free of asbestos,” said Moshe Maimon, a lawyer for Leavitt, in a statement on Wednesday. “The internal J&J documents that the jury saw, once more laid bare the shocking truth of decades of cover- up, deception and concealment by J&J.”   Leavitt’s was the first talc case to go to trial since Reuters on Dec. 14 published a report detailing that J&J knew that the talc in its raw and finished powders sometimes tested positive for small amounts of asbestos from the 1970s into the early 2000s - test results it did not disclose to regulators or consumers. Leavitt’s trial originally included J&J’s talc supplier, Imerys Talc America, a unit of Imerys SE, as a co-defendant. California Superior Court Judge Brad Seligman, who oversaw the trial, told jurors in February that the company was no longer part of the case after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection under the weight of the talc litigation, which stayed lawsuits against it. While earlier talc lawsuits alleged talc itself causes ovarian cancer, plaintiffs’ lawyers have more recently focused on arguing asbestos contamination in talc caused ovarian cancer and mesothelioma, a form of cancer linked to asbestos exposure. In 11 cases so far alleging asbestos contamination in talc, three have resulted in wins for plaintiffs, awarding damages as high as $4.69 billion in a July 2018 multi-plaintiff ovarian cancer verdict. J&J won three other cases and another five ended in hung juries. J&J has appealed all of the plaintiff verdicts, and the company said it is confident the verdicts would be overturned on appeal. (Read the documents that sparked the investigation - here) Claim: Facebook post Says the CEO of Camping World told Trump supporters “Frankly, don’t shop at my business.”

SOLUTION: 0

PROBLEM: Paragraph: As the CostCo retail chain prepared to implement new requirements for shoppers, a message of support for the policy gained traction among Facebook users.The post is based around a photograph of a sign informing shoppers that members will be required to wear face coverings when shopping at CostCo warehouses starting on Monday, May 4 2020.“Members without face coverings will not be permitted inside the warehouse,” the sign reads:At least one iteration of the lengthy post, attributed to Cherrie Vierra Lonkar, has been shared nearly 1,000 times on the platform. She wrote:Ask yourself why you, a retail shopper deserve a handout from Costco. I mean you’ve eaten $5000 worth of free samples there in your lifetime anyway. ￼We are asking many of our healthcare workers to wear bandanas and t-shirts as masks. You aren’t above it. There are school children all over this country who are sewing masks to give away. If a 7 year old can be a decent person and choose to make the world a little more comfortable or safe, then so can you.This isn’t a Burger King drive-through, and no we can’t have it our way. This disease, infection, pandemic, whatever you wanna call it, doesn’t give a shit about you or me. Doesn’t give a shit about black, white, short, tall, age, gender. It’s not our battle to dictate￼.The bottom line is, don’t be a dick. Just put a mask on your self centered, mouth breathing face and let the greeter see the smile in our eyes as we head off to buy our cases of bottled water, pool floats, 10 pound bags of Cheetos, bulk items and cheap premixed margaritas. You’ll be fine.However another version, presented as an extended quote without attribution, has been shared more than 4,500 times since being posted on April 29, 2020.CostCo president Craig Jelinek confirmed the new rule in a letter to members posted on the company’s website, saying:Costco employees are required to wear face coverings, and now we are asking that Costco members do so too. We know some members may find this inconvenient or objectionable, but under the circumstances we believe the added safety is worth any inconvenience. This is not simply a matter of personal choice; a face covering protects not just the wearer, but others too.In short, we believe this is the right thing to do under the current circumstances. Although some may disagree with this policy or question its effectiveness, we’re choosing to err on the side of safety in our shopping environments. Costco has continued to operate during this crisis as an essential business in all of our communities, and our employees are on the front lines. As part of a community, we believe this simple act of safety and courtesy is one that Costco members and employees can undertake together.However, the requirement does not extend to children under the age of 2 or to anyone who cannot wear a mask or face covering for medical reasons.Several states and retail chains have shifted safety policies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with some opting to walk back laws banning the use of non-reusable shopping bags.Comments Claim: CostCo stores will require shoppers to wear masks beginning on May 4, 2020.

SOLUTION:
2