Lawsuit Filed Over Wal-Mart Pharmacy Error

A pharmacy malpractice lawsuit has been filed by a Texas man who alleges that he became sick and was hospitalized after a Wal-Mart pharmacy error resulted in him receiving someone else’s medication. 

The lawsuit was filed last month in Jefferson District Court in Texas by Emile Joseph Nini. According to a report in The Southeast Texas Record, the complaint includes Wal-Mart Stores Texas, Wal-Mart Pharmacy and pharmacist Cindy Lee Carraza as defendants.

The lawsuit alleges that a Walmart pharmacy error resulted in Nini receiving the wrong drugs, and the defendants failed to notify him that they mixed up the medications after the error was discovered. The complaint also indicates that the Walmart pharmacy failed to use safety measures designed to prevent such a mistake and failed to meet acceptable standards for dispensing medication to consumers.

After taking the incorrect medication, Nini was hospitalized in Mach 2008, suffering bodily injury and physical impairment. He is seeking an unspecified amount of damages to compensate for his medical fees, pain and suffering, mental anguish and physical impairment.

According to a 2006 report by the National Academies of Science’s Institute of Medicine, there are about 1.5 million medication errors every year that result in injuries. These mistakes are largely preventable and could be caused by a doctor prescribing the medication incorrectly, the pharmacy filling the wrong dosage or by nurses dispensing a different patient’s drugs.