Law Offices of Michael Pines, APC:
Personal Injury Attorneys & Car Accident Lawyers
Serving San Diego, California Since 1992

Say you are in a car accident where it was the other motorists fault entirely.  He or she was doing some reckless driving through a construction zone and plowed into your car, causing you to spin out of control.  Where do you place the blame — on the driver of the car? On the construction company? Or what about the pharmacy that gave the driver who hit you the mediciation they were on at the time of the auto accident?

A new lawsuit in Nevada is investigating whether pharmacies can be held responsible in fatal car accidents if the drivers were on medications despensed by their facilities.

As auto accident attorneys, we think this is a pretty interesting case.  One could argue that when a pharmacy gives someone mediciation that they do not need — or prescribe drugs faster than is necessary – then maybe they should be held responsible if their customers’ driving is impaired from their products.  When drivers are under the influence of any type of drug or alcohol it usually results in personal injuries or wrongful deaths on the roadways.  Of course, drivers should know better than to drive under the influence of prescription drugs — especially if the warning label on the bottle tells you not to drive while taking it.

On June 4, 2004, Patricia Copening was behind the wheel of her employer’s car and started her reckless driving while under the influence (DUI) of a mixture of drugs, including hydrocodone and Soma.  She lost control of her vehicle, swerved over three lanes of traffic and her car crashed into a delivery truck that had blown a tire on the side of the road.

The two men who were working to fix the delivery truck at the time were right in her path of destruction.  Gregory Sanchez was instantly killed and his co-worker, Robert Martinez, broke his right leg and sustained other personal injuries to his body.

The wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Mr. Sanchez and the personal injury lawsuit filed by Mr. Martinez addresses the question of whether or not pharmacies, such as Walmart, where Copening got some of her prescriptions filled, can be held liable for fault if their customers are taking drugs that directly cause a car accident to happen.  This is different from when pharmacies are held liable for personally injuring a single customer by giving them the wrong medication.

If this lawsuit makes it to the Nevada Supreme Court, it could hold pharmacies at fault when medications that they give to their customers are linked with the death of another person, including fatal auto accidents.

What do you think?

If it was you who experienced a personal injury or had a family memeber lose their life due to someone’s reckless driving while on pharmaceutical prescriptions, who would you rest the blame on?  Is it the driver’s fault for taking the drugs or the pharmacy for giving it to them in the first place?

For the grieving families in Nevada, the answer remains to be seen.

Call us now at 1-800-655-6585 or click here for a free consultation with an experienced auto accident attorney and find out how we can help you.  We speak English and Spanish, and we look forward to providing advice for your case.  No fee if no recovery.

Related posts:

1. Wrongful Deaths Of 21 Polo Horses Caused By Pharmaceutical Malpractice
2. Illinois Car Accident Leads To Wrongful Death Lawsuit
3. Online Pharmacies = Off-Line Personal Injuries?
4. $14.1 Million Wrongful Death Lawsuit Goes To Appeal
5. CVS Drugstore Makes Move To Generate More Profits From Medical Bills

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Car Accidents. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.