Washington wins $900 million verdict against Albertsons for fueling opioid crisis

On November 5, 2026, King County Superior Court Judge Janet Helson entered a $900 million judgment against Albertsons, plus fees and costs, finding that Albertsons' pharmacies violated Washington state and federal law by failing to identify, investigate, resolve, and document "red flags of diversion" when dispensing opioid prescriptions. The Washington Attorney General's Office filed the original lawsuit in 2022 against several chain pharmacies; Albertsons was the sole remaining defendant after others settled or declared bankruptcy. Between 2006 and 2022, Albertsons' more than 200 Washington pharmacies, operating under the Albertsons, Safeway, and Haggen banners, dispensed more than 641 million opioid pills into Washington. Of that total, Albertsons unlawfully filled red-flagged opioid prescriptions more than 6.5 million times without documenting efforts to verify that the prescriptions were written for legitimate medical purposes. The court found that Albertsons' corporate policies discouraged pharmacists from identifying problematic prescribers, prohibited refusal of prescriptions from known pill-mill prescribers in some cases, and kept pharmacy locations siloed so that pharmacists could not share information across stores. Albertsons also continued accepting discount cards as payment for controlled substances after other chains discontinued the practice, with internal documents acknowledging that customers came to Albertsons as "refugees" from chains that had stopped accepting such cards. Albertsons additionally failed to maintain adequate controlled-substance inventory controls. Documented thefts included more than 70,000 opioid pills stolen from a North Bend Safeway over two years, 12,000 pills from a Leavenworth pharmacy, and 19,000 pills from an Olympia location. Chronic understaffing left pharmacists unable to review prescription legitimacy; internal emails from pharmacists stated it was "impossible" to do so given their workload. Since 2000, the Attorney General's Office has recovered a cumulative $2.17 billion for state and local governments from opioid-related litigation.