|
Arizona
Court Rules on Liability for Sharing
Prescription Drugs
Have you ever
given pain medicine prescribed for your use
(or other prescription drug, especially
containing a narcotic) to a friend?
If so, did
you know that you may be committing an unlawful
action? (See, A.R.S. §§ 36-253(A)(6);
32-1961(A) and 13-3408(A)(5))
Did you know
that you could also be civilly liable
for injuries resulting to persons who take the
prescription drug, even if it is someone other
than the person to whom you gave it?
In
Gipson
v. Kasey, 2006
WL 509695,
decided March 2, 2006, Division One of the
Arizona Court of Appeals determined a wrongful
death action could continue against a person
providing eight prescription pain pills to a
co-worker, who in turn gave them to her
boyfriend. The boyfriend died in his sleep that
evening due to a combination of the prescription
medicine and alcohol in his system.
The Court found that, under
the facts of the case, Mr. Kasey, the person
dispensing the drugs, owed a duty of reasonable
care to the third person, Nathan Followill. This
duty was owed because Mr. Kasey: (1) knew Mr.
Followill was the boyfriend of the person to
whom he gave the drugs; (2) gave Mr. Followill’s
girlfriend, Ms. Watters
eight pills; (3) told
Ms. Watters only that he was giving her two
different strengths of pills, but not the name
of the pills, the proper dosage to take; (4) did
not give Ms. Watters any instructions or
warnings about mixing the pills with alcohol;
(5)
had previously refused Mr. Followill’s direct
requests for the drugs, telling him he was “too
stupid and immature to take a drug like that;”
and (6) served the alcohol at the party the
co-workers attended. The
presence of statutes making it unlawful to
furnish one's prescription drugs to another
person not covered by the prescription also gave
rise to the duty of reasonable care to the third
party.
The Court
concluded that dispensing the drugs was the
proximate cause of Mr. Followill's death. This
conclusion was reached even though death would
not have occurred had Ms. Watters not provided
the drugs to her boyfriend and had he not
consumed alcohol in combination with taking the
drugs. The Court felt Mr. Kasey could have
foreseen Mr. Followill taking both actions and
that as a matter of law, Mr. Followill’s actions
were not a superseding cause that broke the
chain of events between Mr. Kasey’s acts and Mr.
Followill’s death. The Court therefore found
Mr. Kasey could not avoid a trial by arguing
that a reasonable person would not have acted
like Mr. Followill (in other words, Mr.
Followill was injured by his own negligence).
The Court reasoned that, as a matter of Arizona
law, the issue of Mr. Followill’s contributory/
comparative negligence must be submitted to and
decided by the jury.
THE FOREGOING IS MERELY A
PARTIAL SUMMARY OF THE CASE
AND IS NOT INTENDED TO BE RELIED UPON AS A LEGAL
OPINION. |
