A California judge on Monday ruled that four drug manufacturers cannot be held liable for fueling the widespread opioid epidemic in the state, dealing a significant blow to the $50 billion case. Attorneys representing three counties in California—Orange, Santa Clara, and Los Angeles, plus the city of Oakland—filed the lawsuit in 2014. They argued that the drug companies Endo International Plc., Johnson & Johnson, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and AbbVie Inc.’s Allergan unit, “engaged in an aggressive false and/or misleading marketing scheme designed to increase, and which succeeded in increasing, the writing of prescriptions for defendants’ opioid medications, and that the increased prescriptions have caused or contributed to this opioid crisis being experienced in California.” The companies denied any wrongdoing. In Monday’s 41-page ruling (pdf), issued by Superior Court Judge Peter Wilson in Orange County, Wilson said that “the Court finds that plaintiffs have failed to prove an actionable public nuisance for which defendants, or any of them, are …