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Walgreens Wants Gag Order in Prescription Error Wrongful Death Suit

August 06, 2007 12:18 PM

Walgreenswants_mn Walgreens has asked a state court judge to place a gag order on the family and attorney representing a mother of three who died following a misfilled prescription at a Florida Walgreens.

Beth Hippely suffered a massive stroke after being given the wrong dosage of a powerful blood thinning medication which crippled her and forced her to stop her needed chemotherapy. She died earlier this year.

Citing an interview given by the Hippelys' attorney, Karen Terry, in an ABC News "20/20" story investigating pharmaceutical errors last spring, Walgreens claims that Terry's actions "had the effect of generating pre-trial publicity prejudicing Walgreens, which has a constitutional right to a non-tainted jury pool." The company is "requesting an order prohibiting the parties and their attorneys from engaging in pre-trial publicity prior to jury selection, and during the trial of this case."

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The motion goes on to request the judge "specifically prohibit the parties and their attorneys or staff from engaging in interviews or commenting about any aspect of the case before and during the trial of this matter."

Peter Canfield, a First Amendment attorney who has represented many media outlets, calls Walgreens' request "unusual" because it's so far reaching.

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"In a civil case, the standard to grant a gag order is very high," says Canfield. "They'd have to show that jurors heard about the '20/20' piece in March and it affected them to the point where they could not be objective."

Canfield also says the request is a "severe restriction" on the First Amendment rights of the Hippely family and their lawyers.

"It's one thing for the court to control the lawyers, but it's very unusual to ask the court to muzzle the parties and the witnesses," he said.

In Beth Hippely's case, a 19-year-old pharmacy technician mistakenly gave Hippely 10 times the prescribed dosage of Coumadin, a powerful blood thinner, which she was prescribed while being treated for breast cancer. Walgreens' policy is that technicians are not supposed to fill actual prescriptions without the supervision and final approval from an actual pharmacist.

In the "20/20" interview, Terry told ABC News the technician's "prior job had been cleaning a movie theater and serving popcorn," and asserted that "it's not just a regrettable error. This is an intentional systemic drive for profits, for money. If it wasn't about that, they would hire more pharmacists; they would train their people; and they wouldn't be about opening more stores and more stores and more stores when they cannot staff what they have now."

Canfield says a gag order in the case would have a chilling effect on the media's ability to do its job in "telling the full story."

"In this case, this is an issue of great public interest outside of Walgreens, and by granting the order you'd be dampening public debate," he says.

Neither Walgreens' nor the Hippelys' lawyers could comment on the gag order request, but Walgreens has repeatedly disputed the allegations against the company.

In an earlier statement to the Blotter on ABCNews.com, Walgreens said, "We deeply regret the few errors that have occurred among the more than 500 million prescriptions we fill each year at our 5,600 pharmacies."

The statement added that "one of the most significant safety initiatives the drugstore industry has undertaken is promoting the use of electronic prescribing, which could have prevented the error in the Hippely case or other instances where the doctor's handwriting is misread. Walgreens invented the electronic prescription 15 years ago and has been a strong advocate of its adoption ever since."

But lawyers for the Hippely family have said the problem is systemic, not electronic.

"They were so understaffed at the time that two to three times a week they would pull stock boys and photo clerks and cashiers with no training whatsoever to fill pill bottles," Terry told ABC News in a previous interview. "District managers saw this with their own eyes and did nothing about it."

The pharmacist who gave Hippely the incorrect dosage wasn't informed of her error for several years and kept her job during that time.

Terry has said she knows of at least three other cases in which serious errors were made by technicians or pharmacists, and the pharmacists on duty were never told of the errors by Walgreens. She has argued that if Walgreens was serious about customer safety, the company would insist on pharmacists being made aware of their errors.

"If Walgreens wanted to improve their quality control and keep errors from happening, they would tell their pharmacists so they could be more careful," said Terry.

"Quality assurance is an ongoing project for us," Walgreens' previous statement said. "We've implemented 14 new quality controls in the last year. We also currently have another 12 in development, all of which were started well before."

The judge is expected to rule on the gag order today when jury selection for the Hippely trial begins. The trial is expected to last two to three weeks. 

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August 6, 2007 in Pharmacy Investigation | Permalink | User Comments (32)

User Comments

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I have regularly taken under my physician's close supervision a Schedule II medication for ADD. I use the simple tablet form. I took my Rx from my doctor to one of our three local Walgreen's (Las Cruces, NM). I ALWAYS check my meds and discovered when I got home that I had been given the TIME RELEASE FORM. I took nice digital photographs of labels and the incorrect med and returned to the pharmacy.

It was instantly corrected with profuse apologies. When I asked the harried tech at the drive what on earth was going on she said,"they just won't hire enough people to take care of the load."

I reported the incident to the New Mexico State Board of Pharmacy but was never informed of a resolution or received a formal apology from Walgreen's. While I must admit that it would probably would not have killed me, the doseage would have been much more than normal and the effects less than pleasant.

Ok, Walgreens, gag me. Jim in Las Cruces, NM.

Posted by: Jim | Aug 8, 2007 6:20:38 PM

I take coumadin, I know what it's for, I know it's extremely important to have the right dosis, They check my blood levels on a frequent basis, if some 19 year old told me to take 10x's the dosis that my doctor advised me to take I would double check w/ him first, People, ya gotta be your own advocate! Double check everything!

Posted by: amy | Aug 9, 2007 9:02:11 PM

I'm really sorry for this woman who died and her family. But you really should be double checking your medicine. People come into a pharmacy expecting to have their meds in ten minutes or less as if we're a Mcdonalds but when errors like this happen everyone wants to go sue people. It's not right, you wait 2 hours in a doctor's office and you can't even wait 20 minutes in a pharmacy? Give me a break.

It's very hard to find good technicians and good pharmacists that's another reason Walgreens is so understaffed, not only walgreens other major chains too.

Posted by: V | Aug 15, 2007 2:57:14 AM

This happened to me once at Walmart but they have a new policy or procedure lately that stopped me from actually taking home the wrong drug. The pharmacists opens the bottle for you to 'examine' it to be sure it is correct and it's a good thing they did because it was 'NOT WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED.' Yes ,this should not be 'kept secret' .....we ,the public deserve to know when a life-threatening/ fatal mistake was made as in this case of Walgreen. Personally it would not affect or stop me from patronizing them ,as a matter of fact ,I would have more 'respect' for them if they would publically address this and apologize and correct this problem....and by all means the family needs and deserves compensation...in some way....

Posted by: debi | Aug 15, 2007 11:46:19 AM

What's wrong with this web site(?) ,it's not working ;I posted and it didn't work and another thing is that when you click on the story ,sometimes you get the shorter version and few comments and click another time and get this site with longer story version and over 20 comments. abc ,I have alot of trouble with your web site....it doesn't work at least 75% of the time the way it should....hmmmmm!

Posted by: d_h | Aug 15, 2007 12:05:38 PM

"i hope walgreens gets shut down or looses the abality to sell prescription drugs of any kind. people are now dead. end of story DEAD

Posted by: kev "

Yep, that would be great as it would force me to go some distance pharmacy instead of the one up the street! I would certainly love hopping on the bus(I don't drive) just to pick up my prescription ! And the people in my neighborhood ( mostly poor) would love that as well! Stop walgreens now!

Posted by: Chris mankey | Aug 24, 2007 4:21:08 PM

Apparently this is a On going this with Walgreen's Just last week my Partner had a prescription filled at a Walgreen's in Tennessee (where we live)for Vicodin and there were 2 different strengths in the bottle. After notifying both the store where this happened and the general managers office in Michigan the only explanation we got was that it was the automated tablet counters fault, because someone had put the "WRONG" dosage in the machine and they filled his prescription before it found be "FIXED" WHO put the Wrong dosage in there in the first place? the only consolation we were offered was that they would replace the wrong dosage pills and offer a "$12.00 refund" big deal; if you end up DEAD from taking the wrong medication. After reading this Story and what happened to us last week, I think we will transfer ALL our prescriptions to another pharmacy I will still be a bit worried if we are taking what we are supposed to be taking It really makes one sit back and wonder how many time has this happened before
I am sorry this had to happen like this and my heart goes out to the Family May she rest in Peace

Posted by: William Andrew Wall II | Sep 18, 2007 9:49:59 AM

why do boxes need to be filled by human in the USA ( and therefore introduces a lot of human mistakes)? in france, pills are delivred in a box right from the factory where much no human error is possible - why don't we do the same in the USA ?

Posted by: antoine | Oct 9, 2007 7:00:12 PM

I keep reading all these mistakes about Walgreens and it makes me wonder if they have a problem with their prescription filling procedure. I am a pharmacist for Wal-Mart, and it is very difficult for me to imagine a Wal-Mart pharmacy making a coumadin mistake like Walgreen's. We have a lot of checks and double checks in place. There seems to be some misunderstanding about who is to blame for the coumadin error. The mistake lies with the pharmacist. Either the pharmacist did not check the tech's work or failed to see the error. If the pharmacy was understaffed, then some blame can be given to the pharmacy manager, maybe the district manager, and maybe the company.

Posted by: Keith | Oct 20, 2007 8:33:52 PM

We are not the only company that makes mistakes, we do get notified if any mistakes were made by us. I don't really know what the hell was going on with the Florida Walgreens since techs are not suppose to give out any medications that have not been reviewed by the pharm. To get a better understanding on how the prescriptions are filled ill put it in order. 1. The prescription is scanned and typed by the tech.2 the pharm. Reviews the script info that was entered (this is the only way the lable will print out only if it is right) 3 the tech fills the rx,4 the pharm then reviews the med and one last time review the script info then it can be released, also the image of what the pill is suppose to look like is on the computer when the finally check is done, also the lable that is given to the patient informs them of the strength, color,shape and writing on the pill. Its like when you buy something from the market you check for the expiration date right? Why don't you check your meds? Something that sensative. I mean we do check them for you but we are still human and make mistakes, not many but we do.

Posted by: Walgreens employee | Dec 2, 2007 5:31:26 AM

As if Walgreens were the only pharmacies in the world who made mistakes. That's pretty sad to say all Walgreens should shut down. My store helps to save lives everyday. It seems everyone wants to bash Walgreens yet they don't think of how many
peoples' lives we positively affect everyday.

Posted by: walgreens employee2 | Mar 6, 2008 9:44:36 PM

I just got the wrong prescriptions from walgreens.I contacted walgreens and was told to immediately bring in the bottle.I assume to fix the error without any drama What should I do?

Posted by: Sophia Jones | Nov 25, 2008 7:24:55 PM

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