Walmart and pharmacist sued over claims of negligence after allegedly filling wrong prescription
A Cahokia man is suing a Walmart pharmacy and one of its pharmacists after they allegedly provided him with the wrong prescription.
Leroy Turner filed a complaint Aug. 25 in St. Clair County Circuit Court against Wal-Mart Inc. and Christopher L. Hurtte, alleging negligence.
On Feb. 3, the complaint states, Turner brought a prescription for Cardura, a medication to treat high blood pressure, to the Cahokia Walmart pharmacy, where Hurtte instead provided him Warfarin, a blood thinner, without Turner’s consent or knowledge. Turner was not prescribed a blood thinner, the complaint states, and a blood thinner was actually contra-indicated when the patient has high blood pressure.
After taking Warfarin for several weeks, Turner called his doctor out of concern for his extreme fatigue and bruising on his arms, shoulders, back, and thighs. His doctor told him to “double up” on the medication, not knowing he was taking Warfarin by mistake.
Turner doubled up on the medication and experienced additional and increased symptoms for about a week before realizing he was taking the wrong medication.
The complaint alleges Walmart and Hurtte were negligent in providing Turner the wrong prescription. Turner seeks a judgment of $50,000 against each defendant, plus court costs.
He is represented by Belleville-based attorney Matthew J. Marlen PC.
St. Clair County Circuit Court case number 15-L-482
Filed under: General Problems
Dispensing errors happen. It’s unfortunate, but it’s a fact of the profession with the “fast food” model that the chains operate on. I’m sure this model contributed to this event to some degree, but that is a topic for another discussion. There are some measures in place in many states that engages the patient and serve to help prevent these errors form causing material harm. For instance, I don’t know if Illinois has a mandatory counselling regulation on the books, but if that is the case that the consult is required, the error could have been caught there. Many people refuse the consult; they do so to their own detriment.
I feel bad for the man, but in looking at this, there are two other culpable parties not being addressed here. One is the physician. Simply telling him to double up on a new med without practicing due diligence and having the patient come in I find questionable. This appears to be a new medication for the patient and, as such, a rerun visit should have occurred. At the least, the story doesn’t indicate of the prescriber was aware of the signs of bleeding. At a minimum, the prescriber’s actions were contributory. The other guilty actor is the patient himself. I don’t know what Illinois requires on an Rx label, but I do know that many states require the description of the tablet to be placed on the label. If that is the case, the patient should have verified that the label descriptor matched the physical product. Even if this information was not on the label, it is easily verifiable on the internet.
We live in a “victim” society where everyone is a victim of someone or something else when something bad happens to the individual. People need to take some responsibility for what happens to them if there was any reasonable chance that the individual could have prevented, or at least mitigated the effects of the event. The pharmacy and the prescriber both dropped the ball on this guy. He only had himself to rely on. In many cases, that is more than enough. I’m not saying that this unfortunate incident was entirely the patient’s fault, but he should shoulder some of the burden of what happened and not try and make the pharmacist and the pharmacy his personal lottery.