$25.8M Award In Walgreens Pharmacy Suit

Pharmacist's Error Caused Cerebral Hemorrhage, Stroke And Eventual Death Of Cancer Patient

(AP)  A jury awarded $25.8 million Friday to the family of a cancer patient who was given a wrong prescription, had a stroke and died several years later, lawyers said.

Beth Hippely was prescribed Warfarin, a blood thinner, in 2002 to treat breast cancer. The prescription filled at a Walgreens pharmacy was 10 times what her doctor prescribed, court documents said.

The Polk County Circuit Court jury found the prescription error caused a cerebral hemorrhage resulting in permanent bodily injury, disability and physical pain. The mother of three died in January at the age of 46.

A 19-year-old pharmacy technician, with little training, misfiled the prescription, according to court documents.

The lawsuit was filed in 2003 by Hippely, her husband Deane Hippely and their children against the Deerfield, Ill.-based Walgreen Co. for negligent breach of duty and wrongful death.

"Beth Hippely died unnecessarily because this tenfold overdose with Warfarin by the pharmacy she trusted caused her cancer to come back with a vengeance and it interrupted all of her cancer treatments," her lawyer Chris Searcy said. "They have been seeking justice for almost five years and this was a case that screamed out for justice."

A statement released by the company expressed sympathy for the Hippely family.

"We're truly sorry for what the Hippely family has been through, and we've personally apologized to them," Walgreens spokeswoman Carol Hively said in a statement. "We have been, and continue to be, the leader in pharmacy safety initiatives. We had hoped the verdict would have been fair and reasonable."

Hively said the company had not decided if it would appeal the decision.

[vze3xsm4]

I am glad that some families of people who died from a Medication Error are compensated for their loved ones deaths, and find out the truth about what happened to them. My father bled to death in his brain for 4 days at a VA Medical Center in 1998 after they gave him an overdose of the blood thinner Heparin, then covered it up. I did not find out the truth until 5 years later, and my family never received any compensation from the VA or the Drug company. After I found out they lied I also found out that the FDA recalled Heparin on the same day I buried my father who died from it, and the Resident who did Brain Surgery on him left the Country a few months after my father died. They misled my family to believe that they did not know what caused his death. They took advantage of the fact that we lived over 3000 miles away, and did not have access to the Medical Records, or other information that we needed to know before the Statute of Limitations expired. Now I am working on making sure the VA never does this to another Veteran and their family ever again.

Daughter of a Veteran

[arealtexan]

Consider one other thing: Wallgreen''s sells a lot more than prescriptions. Prices on prescriptions won''t be what goes up, maybe everything else in the store, though. Pharmacies do not make a whole lot on prescriptions, why do you think you see less and less of the local pharmacies around?

I used to have a pie chart that showed it, but for every prescription dollar you spend about 2 cents goes to the pharmacy. A huge chunk goes to the drug company, another chunk to the distributor, etc. By the time the pharmacy takes its cut from, especially from an insured person, it winds up at such a low margin that you have to sell Widgets and everything else to make a living in the drugstore business.

[samthetvcat]

Scary story, but yeah who here hasn''t gotten ''surprises'' at the pharmacy? Walmart seems to be way worse than Walgreens . . . the story makes it sound like it''s all that 19-year old''s fault with Walgreens being held responsible due to the lack of training. But I''ve found that when a mistake has happened, it''s all down the line - like my doctor was careless, the pharmacy made assumptions it shouldn''t have, and then I didn''t double check until I got home and looked things up on the internet. Kind of scary that consumers have to be the double-checker since people only take medication when they''re less than 100%.

Maybe doctors should be required to type out perscriptions, show us pictures of the pills, and pharmacists should be required to type in the condition the medication is being perscribed to treat . . . it''d be nice in an ideal world if we could feel like perscriptions were going to be mistake-proof all the time, but realistically maybe there''s a lot more we could all be doing to make sure everying''s more accurate . . .

[dascalv]

Posted by toldyouso21 at 10:44 AM : Aug 18, 2007:
"...we cause the deaths of thousands in Iraq..."

Posted by seandgreen at 12:39 PM : Aug 18, 2007:
"Why is it that the price of life for an African American is less than the average Caucasian?"

Posted by walt1944 at 07:18 PM : Aug 18, 2007:
"Welcome to American business, Emperor Bush style! SIG HEIL, BUSH!!!"

Posted by mikekleber at 02:12 AM : Aug 20, 2007:
"Look at all of the extravagent buildings going up for doctors. The Bush years have been very good to the entire medical community."

You people are pathetic. Please stop blaming every negative thing in America on President Bush, Iraq & white people. The article was about a royal pharmacy screw up resulting in a tragic, unnecessary loss of life. But wait, if you think really hard, you can see how it just had to be the President''s fault (sarcasm intended). Oh yeah, this was also a racial injustice (thank you, seandgreen, for injecting race into this. I didn''t see this family''s race mentioned, did you?) But, if we all thought like seandgreen, we should just automatically intuit that the family is white b/c of the large pay-out. God knows, that amount would NEVER have been awarded to a black family. Get over yourself. To all of you: your hatred on so many different levels has to be unhealthy if you can take an article about a tragedy like this one & inject your vitriol towards Bush & racial inequality into it. Enough already. It''s gotten really, really old.

[arealtexan]

I grew up in a small-town pharmacy. My dad is a pharmacist.

WHen a tech fills a prescription the pharmacist is supposed to check it, that''s the law. Ultimately this is the fault of the pharmacist.

As to the monetary damages to Wallgreen''s, it won''t effect anything, not even their pricing, because they are heavily insured.

[waterandsand]

i would like to know what blood thinner she was takin. I wouldnt figure blood thinners come in doses that are 10X''s bigger than another.

[whatsup49]

shouldn''t the pharmacist have checked the written prescription against what the pharm tech filled? i know at my pharmacy, while the techs do a lot of the processing, each script (the written script and what the tech filled) is examined by the pharmacist.

[connapa]

The prescribing doctor probably also has some liability in this case. With hand written prescriptions, he/she probably wrote something like 5.0 mg. The poor sap behind the counter probably couldn''t make out the decimal point and gave her 50 mg. He/She probably got off because their lawyer probably argued that that high a dose should have made the pharmacy call and verify the prescription. Simple safety practices like not using a decimal point for whole numbers will prevent many prescription errors- if everybody adopts the practice, that is.

[justfacts2]

I would like to thank the greediness of the lawyers and the idiocy of the jurors for raising the prescription rates! That was greatly appreciated.

[brianbwb-2009]

Posted by cbsreader4,

Very astute of you to notice the conflicting statements.

I would also reply to your statement, "What is surprising is that it isn''t happening more often-as far as we know."

It does happen more often, the reason you don''t hear about it is that the company''s team of lawyers convince the (usually only one) lawyer of the victims families that they have little or no chance of collecting substantial damages within any reasonable time frame, so they settle for chump change, then the matter is closed, and doesn''t make the news.

[mikekleber]

My oldest daughter was given the wrong antibiotic when she was five. She was allergic to the medicine and her allergy was on Walgreen''s computer system. "Really" was the only response from the pharmacist when I took the medication back. It was filled by the pharmacist by the way.

Because of my insurance, our family still went to Walgreens. When my youngest daughter was seven, she broke her arm. She not only received the wrong pain medication, the dosing on the bottle was too much for an adult. When I went back that time, I didn''t get a sorry, oops, or kiss my ***.

Our insurance changed providers, and we use a different pharmacy now.

Will this affect Walgreen''s? Absolutely not. Right now, Walgreens is building three pharmacies within five miles of my house. All of the buildings are on corner lots and I know for a fact they paid over one million dollars for each lot.

The medical system is making too much money. Look at all of the extravagent buildings going up for doctors. The Bush years have been very good to the entire medical community.

[incog-nito]

People think that a large award will not do anything to change Walgreen''s ways because they''ll simply raise the price for everybody. But that''s precisely the point. Raising prices will reduce their competitiveness because more people will go elsewhere. If they want to remain competitive they''d better do something to avoid incidents like this. That''s not to say they will do it, but that''s the idea of large punitive damages.

[cbsreader4]

From my experience with Walgreens Pharmacys this case is not surprising in the least. What is surprising is that it isn''t happening more often-as far as we know.

Run, don''t walk, away from Walgreens and you''ll be doing yourself a big favor. And if you don''t believe me just reread the article above and ponder for minute what their spokesperson said:

"We''re truly sorry for what the Hippely family has been through, and we''ve personally apologized to them," Walgreens spokeswoman Carol Hively said in a statement.

Now consider another statement the article above mentioned and decide for yourself if Walgreens is "truly sorry" or not and if it is the kind of company you want in direct control of your life and health:

"They have been seeking justice for almost five years..."

[phipsgirl07]

as a member of the Hippely family, i think that Walgreens should admit that what they did caused the the lose of a wonderful women. Her children, 2 of whom are at a young age, will have to suffer with growing up without a mother. I know that there is no price on a human life, but Walgreens should face the fact that because of a screw up on there part, a women is dead!!! Because of the mix up of meds (which the meds were part of her treatment) she had the stroke, and because of the stroke she couldnt continue in her chemotherapy, and because she couldnt continue in her chemotherapy the cancer came back, which resulted in her death. Walgreens is at fault in this case!!

[rfcnj68]

Ndg1979, I am sorry but there is no value to be placed on that lost live all that money will do is help the lawyers line their pockets and give Mr. Hippely a little piece to raise his family.

As for Corporate America taking notice, no that won%u2019t happen, they will just increase prices to help compensate for that "what if factor".

The biggest thing that comes out of this looking at it from a consumers stand point is that you need to double check what you are getting before you leave because the system for checks and balances is flawed.

[adian1-2009]

Well, there goes some money out of the insurers of Walgreens. Unless a settlement for less was offered and rejected by Walgreens, the whole amount must be paid by the insurers. We, the consumers, pay the premiums when we buy something from Walgreens. It is built-in in the price we pay for their products. So, there is no reason for celebrating. We, the consumers, pay for the negligence of this employee.

[ndg1979]

Now we all know how much a human life is worth. Now corporate America can sit up and take notice - if you are going to take a human life, it will cost you a paltry 25.8 million. My best to the family that lost a wife and mother before her time.

[nskduke]

$25.8 million dollars. That is ridiculas!

[rxtechwa]

As a pharmacy technician, A pharmacist''s check of my work is required by law! It doesn''t matter whether the technician is 19 or 59.
Ultimately, it is the pharmacist''s license that is on the line.
As the quote in a CSI episode said: "The death was in the decimal point."

[starleo146]

They probably get there drugs from China as well no telling what she took.