CNN.com - Family of brain-damaged boy blames Walgreens for methadone error - Aug. 18, 2003: The family of a brain-damaged boy who received methadone instead of an anti-hyperactivity drug has asked for millions of dollars in sanctions against Walgreens. Attorneys for Joshua Dunbar made the request Friday, after a mistrial was declared when a store pharmacist testified that a prescription that Walgreens said proved it could account for all the methadone in its Espanola store was forged. Lawyers for the Dunbar family on Friday gave the court affidavits from jurors who said they had been prepared to return a verdict of perhaps $350 million or more in damages against Walgreens before the mistrial was declared.
Well.
Leaving aside the fact that the verdict would almost certainly have been sharply reduced on appeal ... the jury was prepared to return a $350 million verdict for what appeared to be a rather peculiar error, but nothing more. Now it's been alleged that Walgreens did something illegal to try to affect the outcome.
One wonders what sort of verdict a jury would bring back after this. It's plain that the original jury didn't believe Walgreens' assertions; now they have even more ammunition. At the same time, a multi-hundred-million dollar verdict is, frankly, not even vaguely reasonable -- although if Walgreens is found to have forged a prescription to try to account for the missing methadone, it becomes much less UNreasonable.
Posted by iain at August 18, 2003 05:44 PMComments
Man, I don't know. I am not the biggest fan of the tort system as a means for solving problems, but if there was ever a time when a corporation should have apologized like mad and thrown a big pile of money at some people, this was it. To instead commit a fraud on the court to weasel out of it -- wow. Criminal sanctions would make more sense but I'm not sure on whom you would impose them. With a corporation, a big fat money hit is about the best you can do.
Posted by Beth at August 19, 2003 12:29 AM
