The latest opioid settlement plan with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma could end the yearslong legal saga

Only 218 out of more than 54,000 personal injury victims rejected Purdue’s latest bankruptcy plan.

Lawyers representing OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, branches of the Sackler family that own it, cities, states, counties, Native American tribes, people with addiction and others across the U.S. are expected to deliver a nearly unanimous message for a bankruptcy court judge Friday: Approve a plan to settle thousands of opioid-related lawsuits against the company.

If U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane abides, it will close a long chapter — and maybe the entire book — on a legal odyssey over efforts to hold the company to account for its role in an opioid crisis connected to 900,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999, including deaths from heroin and illicit fentanyl.

Closing arguments were expected Friday in the third day of a hearing over a bankruptcy plan for the company, which filed for protection six years ago as it faced lawsuits with claims that grew to trillions of dollars.