A pharmacist may offer expert testimony in a wrongful death lawsuit regarding a physician’s alleged failure to obtain a patient’s informed consent, according to a ruling by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. Fusco v. Shannon, 63 A.3d 145 (Md. Spec. App. 2013). The trial court excluded testimony from the…
Confusion between two similarly-named drugs can be harmful or even fatal if the error is not detected quickly. An error could result from any number of circumstances, such as a pharmacist who misreads a doctor’s handwriting or a nurse who accidentally administers the wrong drug. The U.S. Food and Drug…
A federal court dismissed most of the causes of action in a lawsuit alleging that a generic antibiotic caused a dangerous, potentially-fatal reaction. Wilson v. Amneal Pharmaceuticals, LLC, No. 1:13-cv-00333, order (D. Id., Dec. 31, 2013). The lawsuit asserted claims under Idaho state law, but the decision is similar to…
A federal employment termination lawsuit against a major corporation had the unintended consequence of revealing a potentially unlawful scheme of illegally operated pharmacies. Please note, however, that just because a former employee made allegations in his complaint doesn’t necessarily mean that they are true. Individuals can allege anything they want…
Hospital pharmacies, as opposed to retail pharmacies, present unique challenges that can lead to mistakes being made. Those include a much larger amount of patients being served at any given time, more complicated health issues or treatments, different doctors providing coordinated care, and the different medical professionals’ habits in writing…
A California man and his wife recently filed a lawsuit against the drug maker Genentech, a compounding pharmacy, and the doctors responsible for injecting contaminated medicine into his eye that caused him to become blind. The lawsuit makes several different sorts of arguments regarding culpability of the various defendants for…
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia reached an instructive decision regarding conflicting expert testimony in prescription medication injury cases where causation is at issue. In the case, Patteson v. Maloney, Dist. Court, Dist. Col. (2013), the plaintiff was suing her prior psychiatrist for prescribing her Seroquel, which…
The U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina recently handed ruled on a motion to dismiss, filed by Walgreens in a negligence lawsuit regarding improperly dispensed fertility medication. In the case, Caesar v. Walgreen Co., Dist. Court, D. South Carolina (2013), the plaintiffs allege that Walgreens improperly filled…
In 2009, the United States Supreme Court handed down a seminal decision regarding the liability of drug manufacturers for failure to adequately warn of the risks associated with using a particular drug. The Court examined the argument of a drug manufacturer that it could not be held liable for a…
The Massachusetts Senate voted late last month unanimously to increase regulatory oversight within the state of drug compounding pharmacies, in order to help protect patient safety. The potential issues regarding the largely unregulated compounding pharmacies such as the one in Massachusetts, which was believed to be the source of a…