Flinn v. Eckerd Corporation
Confidential
Settlement
In August of 1996, a retired insurance adjuster
and his wife went to Eckerd Pharmacy in Portland,
Texas to purchase three medications that the man
needed prior to his upcoming surgery, per his doctor's
written instructions. The couple gave the written
instructions to the clerk behind the pharmacy counter.
The pharmacy clerk retrieved two of the medications
from shelves in the over-the-counter medication area,
and then retrieved a third item - which should have
been magnesium citrate - from an area behind the
pharmacy counter referred to by Eckerd as "Over-the-counter
A-to-Z." However, instead of the specified medication,
the clerk gave our client and his wife a bottle of
sodium silicate, a highly toxic substance known as "liquid
glass."
Having trusted the pharmacy to supply the correct
medications, the couple went home, measured out 10
ounces of the liquid, and placed it in the refrigerator
to chill, per the doctor's orders. The next day,
the man drank the substance which he thought was
magnesium citrate at 4:00 pm, just as his doctor
had instructed. Within a few hours, the man's wife
returned from work to find him on the bathroom floor,
near death, covered in blood, and with severe chemical
burns to his lungs.
During his five-and-one-half month hospitalization
that followed, our client endured respiratory and
acute kidney failure, ulceration of the esophagus,
adult respiratory distress, a tracheotomy, and an
enlarged heart, among many other complications. Fortunately,
he survived, but now suffers from a range of debilitating
health problems that include chronic kidney failure,
numbness, blackouts, and worsening vision.
Eckerd Corporation settled with our client, but
our battle to prevent this kind of tragic mistake
from ever recurring is far from over. During litigation,
we learned that Eckerd had documented more than 50,000
other medication errors between December, 1980 and
December, 1996, and that other Eckerd customers had
died or been seriously injured by similar medication
errors. More tragically, Eckerd Corporation appeared
to accept these errors as a necessary part of doing
business.
In January, 1998, we joined with our client, his
wife, and his children in publicly calling on Eckerd
Corporation to adopt and enforce a zero-tolerance
policy toward medication errors. We also challenged
Eckerd to implement and enforce internal regulations
to eliminate all medication errors from its system.
Today, our firm continues to work with a variety
of groups in an effort to increase consumer safety
in this area.
This case is only one of many we have successfully
handled. Please feel free to contact us if you are
interested in finding out more about our work.
Perry & Haas, the Allene Evans
Law Firm, and the Shackelford Law Firm, three independent
law firms practicing cooperatively.
The
Allene Evans Law Firm does not offer any guarantee of
case results.
Past success in litigation does not guarantee success in any new or future
lawsuit.
This website describes some of the cases that Allene Evans has worked on in the past. The description of those cases is summary in nature.
You should be aware that the results obtained in each of the cases we have
worked on was dependent on the particular facts of each case. The results of
other cases will differ based on the different facts involved.
