Nancy Zailo is at the back of the line.
She’s behind Jeffrey Stein, the Rite Aid Corp. chief executive collecting $300,000 paychecks every month. She’s behind consultants at Alvarez & Marsal, who have billed the pharmacy chain $75 million and counting. She’s behind bondholders and behind $2,000-an-hour lawyers from Kirkland & Ellis. And she’s behind lenders like Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. that are collecting millions of dollars in interest from a credit line carrying the company through bankruptcy.
Only after they’ve all been paid — along with many, many others — could some of what’s left go to thousands like Zailo who allege the drug-store chain ignored red flags as it fed their opioid addictions for years. “I lost everything,” she said.
Here’s what she’s expected to get: Nothing.
The plight of people like Zailo, it turns out, does little to bend the rigid structures of the US Bankruptcy Code. In fact, insolvency rules