June 24 (Reuters) -

U.S. law firm Motley Rice is appealing its award of $396

million for its work on litigation against the drug industry

over the opioid crisis that resulted in $46 billion in

nationwide settlements.

The firm said it would appeal the award, which represents

18.6% of a $2.13 billion pool of fees to be divided among dozens

of law firms, in a notice filed Friday in Cleveland federal

court. It did not say how much it was asking for or on what

basis it was challenging the award.

Motley Rice had already won a bump in fees after objecting

earlier in the allocation process, up from 17.2%, or $366

million, according to a June 7 court filing.

The firm did not immediately respond to a request for

comment.

Several other firms have secured awards in the hundreds of

millions of dollars and have not appealed them.

Other firms that filed notices of appeal are Spangenberg

Shibley & Liber; Kelley Ferraro; Crueger Dickinson; Stranch,

Jennings & Garvey; and Weisman, Kennedy & Berris. All of those

firms received less than 2% of the funds.

The fees stem from settlements that local and Native

American tribal governments have reached with drugmakers Johnson

& Johnson ( JNJ ), AbbVie ( ABBV ) and Teva Pharmaceutical

Industries; distributors Cencora ( COR ), McKesson

and Cardinal Health ( CAH ); and pharmacies CVS,

Walgreens Boots Alliance ( WBA ) and Walmart ( WMT ).

They do not include a settlement of up to $6 billion with

bankrupt OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, which is funded by that

company's Sackler family owners in exchange for a shield from

future lawsuits. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently weighing

whether that settlement is legal.

Opioid settlements, including both the nationwide deals and

separate agreements negotiated by individual states, now total

well over $50 billion. However, many state and local governments

have yet to develop detailed plans for how they will spend the

money to remedy the harms caused by opioids.

More than 800,000 people in the United States died of opioid

overdoses from 1999 through 2023, according to data from the

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Plaintiffs in

the lawsuits say that drugmakers downplayed the drugs' risks,

and that distributors and pharmacies ignored red flags that they

were being diverted into illegal channels, fueling an epidemic

of addiction.

Read more:

Top law firms in US opioid lawsuits to get hundreds of

millions in fees

US Supreme Court torn over Purdue Pharma bankruptcy

settlement