Arizona Settlements: Opioids, Water Rights, and Consumer Protection

Arizona is a party to some of the largest legal settlements in its history, including more than $1.2 billion in opioid recoveries, multi-billion-dollar tribal water rights agreements signed in 2024, and a run of consumer protection cases that have returned money to residents and reshaped how companies do business in the state. Taken together, these Arizona settlements determine where hundreds of millions of public dollars are spent, who controls disputed water, and what remedies individual consumers can claim.

Opioid Settlements

Arizona participates in the national opioid settlements with Johnson & Johnson, the three major distributors (McKesson, Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen), Walgreens, CVS, Walmart, Teva, Allergan, Kroger, Purdue Pharma, and several generic manufacturers. McKinsey & Company settled separately with a multistate coalition that included Arizona in February 2021.¹ Additional settlements involve Endo, Mallinckrodt, and manufacturers including Alvogen, Amneal, Apotex, Hikma, Indivior, Mylan, Sun, and Zydus.²

The money flows through the One Arizona Distribution of Opioid Settlement Funds Agreement, signed in August 2021 by all 15 counties and 90 cities and towns.³ It splits proceeds 44 percent to the state and 56 percent to local governments. The local share goes to regions (each county plus its cities and towns) under a formula that weighs opioid shipments, opioid deaths, and the number of people with opioid use disorder equally.⁴

How Much Money Is Coming In

As of June 30, 2025, the state’s anticipated share over 18 years totaled roughly $534.7 million, with about $148.7 million allocated and $136 million awarded.⁵⁶⁷⁸

What the Money Can Pay For

Every dollar is restricted to “Approved Purposes” tied to opioid abatement: medication-assisted treatment, recovery housing and peer support, crisis stabilization and screening, clinician training, and support for first responders. The state may direct up to 30 percent of its share to opioid education, Department of Corrections programs, and southern border interdiction and abatement.⁴

Regions report receipts and expenditures to the Attorney General by July 31 each year, and the state publishes those reports along with its own by September 30.⁹ Records must be kept for at least five years. If funds go to unapproved uses, the state or a local government can sue in Maricopa County Superior Court for an injunction and clawback, and future distributions can be suspended.⁴

How Local Governments Get Paid

A county, city, or town must sign the One Arizona Agreement and each applicable national settlement, releasing claims against the companies. A county that signs receives 60 percent of its available local share, and unlocks the remaining 40 percent by getting full participation from its cities and towns. Unclaimed funds move to the state and to counties that reached 100 percent participation. The county health department leads each region and consults with cities on distribution. Municipalities without the capacity to manage their own share can reassign it to the county.⁹

Maricopa County, the state’s largest region, keeps 51.53 percent of its regional allocation and distributes 48.47 percent to 25 cities and towns. Its total anticipated share is about $333 million, and it had received roughly $96.7 million as of mid-2025. The county expanded medication-assisted treatment in its jails with a $3.97 million allocation, awarded $4.3 million to 17 community organizations in April 2025, and invested nearly $350,000 in a workplace opioid policy toolkit.¹⁰

The Fight Over Prison Spending

The most contested piece of Arizona’s opioid settlements is a Legislature-ordered transfer to the state prison system. The fiscal year 2025 budget sent $115 million in settlement funds to the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry to help close a $1.4 billion deficit. Budget language limited the money to “past and current department costs for care, treatment, programs and other expenditures for individuals with opioid use disorder and any co-occurring substance use disorder or mental health conditions.”¹¹

Attorney General Kris Mayes sued to stop the transfer, calling it a “blatant budget gimmick” and arguing the money was meant for community opioid treatment, detox centers, and naloxone distribution.¹² A temporary restraining order was granted and then dissolved on June 24, 2024, when Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah ruled that the funds are “subject to appropriation” by the Legislature and that there was no evidence at that point of a violation. He also questioned whether the Attorney General could use a litigation settlement to claim veto power over the state budget.¹³

New evidence emerged in May 2026. The Arizona Auditor General’s annual single audit found that the Department of Corrections spent $50.9 million of opioid settlement funds in 2024 on hepatitis C treatment for inmates but “lacks records supporting they were spent for approved purposes.” The audit warned that noncompliance could force the state to return money and jeopardize future payments worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The department said the spending was appropriate, citing internal data that nearly all inmates treated for hepatitis C had a history of substance abuse, and agreed to a corrective action plan by September 30, 2026.¹⁴ By mid-2026, roughly $150 million in settlement funds had been directed to the prison system, with the proposed budget seeking another $40 million. Mayes said she was “very actively looking” at a new legal challenge, arguing the audit supplied the evidence Judge Hannah had found missing.¹⁵

Consumer Protection Settlements

The Attorney General’s office has returned money to Arizona consumers and reshaped business practices through a string of recent settlements. Several include claims windows or ongoing protections you can use.

Choice Home Warranty

A January 2026 consent judgment against New Jersey-based Choice Home Warranty totaled $11.8 million, described as the largest consumer fraud settlement of its kind in state history. The 2019 lawsuit alleged the company manipulated contract language and hid coverage exclusions, and the AG’s office had received more than 1,500 complaints about it between 2013 and 2023.¹⁶ The company must make monthly payments until the full amount is reached and must provide clear disclosures before customers pay. Arizona consumers who bought a warranty by phone between 2013 and 2025 could file for restitution through August 1, 2026.¹⁷

Arizona Public Service

APS has settled with the AG twice. In February 2021, the utility paid $24 million over allegations that a rate plan comparison tool left about 225,000 residential customers on plans that were not the most cost-effective for them.¹⁸ In April 2026, Mayes announced a $7 million settlement over disconnection practices during extreme heat, following the May 2024 death of Katherine Korman after her power was cut during dangerously hot conditions. The consent judgment requires APS to reinstate a voluntary policy halting residential disconnections when temperatures are forecast to reach 95°F, implement text-message alerts for past-due notices, and fund a consumer assistance program. All payments must come from shareholder funds, not ratepayer charges.¹⁹

Greystar and Rental Junk Fees

In May 2026, the AG announced three settlements with apartment manager Greystar over hidden rental charges. A national FTC settlement required Greystar to pay $23 million, with an anticipated $1.5 million for Arizona consumers. Two state-level settlements addressed junk fees at specific complexes in Mesa and Gilbert, with a combined $100,000 in consumer restitution and requirements that Greystar display total monthly prices and disclose all mandatory fees.²⁰ These are separate from the AG’s ongoing 2024 antitrust lawsuit against Greystar, RealPage, and eight other corporate landlords, which alleges an algorithmic price-fixing conspiracy that drove rents up by at least 30 percent in the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas.²¹

Other Notable Consumer Cases

Volkswagen (2018): $10.6 million in restitution to Arizona consumers over the marketing of certain “clean diesel” vehicles.¹⁸
Theranos (2017): a $4.65 million consent judgment providing full refunds to every Arizonan who bought a Theranos blood test.¹⁸
Reynolds Consumer Products (2026): a settlement requiring the maker of Hefty bags to stop labeling non-recyclable bags as “recycling” bags and add clear packaging disclaimers nationwide, plus $212,000 in payments and restitution.²²

Tribal Water Rights Settlements

Arizona has one of the most extensive histories of tribal water rights litigation in the western United States. Twenty-two federally recognized tribes are based in the state. By the mid-2020s, 14 had fully or partially resolved their water claims, six still had outstanding claims, and four had agreements awaiting congressional approval.²³

The 2004 Arizona Water Settlements Act

Signed by President George W. Bush in December 2004, the Arizona Water Settlements Act settled water rights for the Gila River Indian Community and the Tohono O’odham Nation, adjusted Central Arizona Project allocations, and resolved repayment litigation between the United States and the Central Arizona Water Conservancy District.²⁴ The Act reallocated 197,500 acre-feet of non-Indian agricultural priority CAP water to Arizona tribes and redistributed an additional 65,647 acre-feet of uncontracted municipal and industrial water to cities including Phoenix, Tucson, and Mesa.²⁵ About 46 percent of the CAP water supply is or will be permanently allocated to Arizona tribes as a result of this and related settlements.²³

Settlements Already Enacted

The major enacted agreements span nearly 50 years: the Ak-Chin Indian Community Act of 1978, the Southern Arizona Water Rights Settlement Act of 1982 (Tohono O’odham Nation), Salt River Pima-Maricopa in 1988, Fort McDowell in 1990, San Carlos Apache in 1992, Yavapai-Prescott in 1994, the Gila River Indian Community settlement of 2004, the White Mountain Apache quantification of 2010, the Bill Williams River settlement for the Hualapai Tribe in 2014, and the Hualapai Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act enacted in 2023.²⁶

Pending Agreements Awaiting Congress

Governor Katie Hobbs signed two agreements in November 2024 that she described as the largest tribal water settlements in U.S. history. Both still need federal ratification and funding.²⁷

The Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Agreement covers the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Tribe, and the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, resolving claims to the Colorado River, the Little Colorado River, and groundwater across roughly 11.5 million acres. It would allocate tens of thousands of acre-feet of upper and lower basin Colorado River water to the tribes, authorize a major pipeline from Lake Powell, ratify a treaty granting the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe 5,400 acres, and establish trust funds totaling roughly $5 billion.²⁸ Introduced in the Senate as S. 953, the bill drew Department of the Interior testimony before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in March 2026; the department supported the settlement’s goals but raised “significant concerns” about overall cost.²⁹

The Yavapai-Apache Nation Water Rights Settlement Agreement would secure water supplies for the Nation, fund a 60-mile pipeline from C.C. Cragin Reservoir, and resolve claims pending in Arizona courts for more than 40 years.²⁷³⁰³¹

Other Significant Settlements

In 2020, Arizona settled Tinsley v. Faust, a class action over the behavioral, physical, and dental health services provided to children in Department of Child Safety custody and case manager workloads. Filed in 2015 by Children’s Rights, Inc. and the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, the settlement was submitted to the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona in August 2020 and received preliminary approval that October.³²

Arizona State University and the Arizona Board of Regents settled with the Havasupai Tribe in April 2010 after the tribe alleged that DNA samples collected in the early 1990s for a diabetes study were used without proper consent for unrelated research the tribe found culturally offensive. The settlement provided $700,000 in compensation to tribe members, funding for a tribal clinic and school, and the return of all DNA samples. Because the case settled, it left no formal legal precedent on informed consent in research.³³

1
National Association of Attorneys General. Opioids
2
Maricopa County. Opioid Settlement Planning
3
City of Phoenix. Opioid Settlement Agreement
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National Opioid Settlement. One Arizona Distribution of Opioid Settlement Funds Agreement
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Arizona Attorney General. One Arizona Agreement – State
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Arizona Attorney General. One Arizona Agreement – Regions
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Arizona Joint Legislative Budget Committee. AG Opioid Settlement Presentation
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Opioid Settlement Tracker. Global Settlement Tracker
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One Arizona. Frequently Asked Questions
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Maricopa County. Maricopa County Opioid Funding Announcement
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Arizona Mirror. Judge Allows AZ Opioid Settlement Money to Go to State Prisons
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Arizona Republic. Attorney General Wins Emergency Court Order
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Your Valley. Judge Ends Block on Using Opioid Funds in Recent Arizona Budget
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KJZZ. Audit: Arizona Department of Corrections May Have Unlawfully Spent Part of Opioid Settlement
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Arizona Capitol Times. Mayes Weighs Challenge Against Allegedly Misspent Opioid Settlement
16
Courthouse News Service. Arizona Wins $12 Million in Home Warranty Consumer Fraud Settlement
17
Arizona Attorney General. Consumer Protection: Choice Home Warranty
18
Arizona Attorney General. Past Settlements
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Arizona Attorney General. Attorney General Mayes Secures $7 Million Settlement With APS
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Arizona Attorney General. Attorney General Mayes Announces Settlements With Greystar Over Hidden Rental Charges
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Arizona Attorney General. Attorney General Mayes Sues RealPage and Residential Landlords
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Arizona Attorney General. Attorney General Mayes Announces Settlement With Hefty Parent Company Reynolds
23
Central Arizona Project. Tribal Water Rights
24
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Arizona Water Settlement 2004
25
U.S. Congress. Public Law 108-451
26
U.S. Department of the Interior. Enacted Indian Water Rights Settlements
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Office of the Arizona Governor. Governor Hobbs Signs Two Historic Tribal Water Rights Settlements
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Office of Sen. Mark Kelly. Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Act
29
U.S. Department of the Interior. Indian Water Settlements Testimony
30
U.S. Congress. S.3617 – Yavapai-Apache Nation Water Rights Settlement Act of 2026
31
Rep. Eli Crane. Rep. Crane Introduces Legislation to Codify the Yavapai-Apache Nation Water Rights Settlement
32
Arizona Department of Child Safety. Settlement
33
National Center for Biotechnology Information. Havasupai Tribe Case Study