The Texas Supreme Court answered yes in its recent decision Randol Mill Pharmacy v. Miller, 2015 WL 1870058 (Tex. Apr. 24, 2015). And while the decision is full of statutory interpretation of the Texas Medical Liability Act, which wouldn’t normally draw our interest, when we read this one we saw some implications for pharmacy liability we didn’t like. That’s bad for pharmacies. It is also bad for manufacturers who look to get pharmacy defendants who may create a bar to federal removal dismissed as fraudulently joined.
The facts are fairly straightforward. Plaintiff’s physician prescribed and administered weekly injections of lipoic acid to treat plaintiff’s hepatitis C. Plaintiff suffered an adverse reaction to one injection and alleges she has been left blind as a result. Id. at *1. Plaintiff sued both the pharmacy who compounded the lipoic acid and several of its pharmacists. The pharmacy and pharmacists moved to dismiss for plaintiff’s failure to serve an expert report within 120 days of filing as required by the Medical Liability Act. Plaintiff argued that her claims against the pharmacy/pharmacists were products liability claims, not healthcare liability claims and therefore the statute did not apply. Both the trial and intermediate appellate courts agreed with plaintiff concluding that the pharmacists were not healthcare providers. Id.
Plaintiff’s allegations against the pharmacy defendants include:
- negligence in manufacture, design and warning;
- breach of implied warranties in the design, manufacture, inspection, marketing, and/or distribution;
- and what essentially sounds like strict liability manufacturing, design and warning claims (“inappropriate warnings and instructions for use,” the produce “was defective, ineffective and unreasonably dangerous.” Id.
Continue Reading Are Compounding Pharmacists Healthcare Providers?