The city of Baltimore now has until August to decide if it will accept an 80% cut to its winnings or request a new trial in an opioid lawsuit against drug distributors.

Baltimore City Circuit Judge Lawrence Fletcher-Hill will also rule on how much money the city should receive in abatement funds to rectify future damage from opioids before the new deadline, he wrote in an order this week.

Fletcher-Hill ruled two weeks ago that the $266 million jurors awarded to the city at the end of a two-month trial last year was “grossly excessive” and proposed slashing the verdict. The judge offered Baltimore’s lawyers a choice: accept just under $52 million from the drug distributors McKesson and AmerisourceBergen, or have a new trial to decide damages.

In a letter requesting more time to make its decision, the city told Fletcher-Hill that is it “seriously considering accepting” the lower figure, but needs more information about the amount of abatement money that might become available.

The judge’s decision to reduce the award came as a surprise, in part because Fletcher-Hill was expected to issue a ruling on opioid abatement funds, not claw back money from the jury verdict. While the jury’s award was meant to cover the costs associated with Baltimore’s deadly opioid crisis, abatement money is designed to relieve the problem going forward.

The city’s lawsuit accused the drug distributors of contributing to the crisis by failing to monitor and stop suspiciously large orders of opioid painkillers to Baltimore pharmacies. The companies supplied about 60% of the half a billion opioids that flooded Baltimore and Baltimore County between 2006 and 2019, according to federal drug dispensing data.

Baltimore has experienced the highest rate of overdose deaths of any major city in America, according to a series of articles in The Baltimore Banner and The New York Times last year.

Jurors agreed with the city and found McKesson and AmerisourceBergen almost entirely responsible for the public nuisance caused by the misuse of prescription opioids in Baltimore — an outcome that “cannot be justified by the evidence presented at trial,” Fletcher-Hill wrote in a 96-page opinion this month.

He also held off on ruling how much abatement money to award. The city requested an additional $5 billion for a sweeping abatement plan, while the drug companies argued they should not be held responsible for downstream costs of the opioid crisis, such as housing and transportation services for people receiving treatment.

In his order this week, Fletcher-Hill agreed that it would help the city decide whether to request a new trial on damages if he issued an abatement decision first. The judge wrote that he would issue his decision about two weeks before the new Aug. 8 deadline.

“That should give the city sufficient time to consider the full situation,” he wrote. He could also push the deadline further if he needs more time for the abatement decision.

His decision would be conditional on the city accepting the roughly $52 million in reduced damages. If the city chooses to have a new trial to determine damages, Fletcher-Hill could also revisit his abatement decision.