Do i have a medical malpractice lawsuit?

by **jarel** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 11:10 am

My bf's mother takes 20 mg lisinipril. Its her first month of the 20's. She was taking 10 mg of lisinpril previously. Her dr prescribed 20's to her cause her blood pressure was to high. So any ways she had no clue of what 20 mg of lisinipril looked like. I was not able to look at it cause she didn't bring it up to my attention & also i was gone allot this month. Well any ways I have been on 20 mg of lisinpril myself for the last 12 years so i know exactly what 20 mg of lisinipril looks like. I look a look at her 20 mg of lisiniprils today & ah well they looked like somas or oxycodone nothing like the 20 mg's i am used to taking. I checked online what pill she had been taking & it was a 40 mg lisinpril. The pharmacy screwed up.

There is no way her or I switched pills either cause our lisiniprils were not even filled on the same day. They were filled by the same pharmacy though but not on the same day. Wouldnt exchange pills or nothing obviously. We make sure our name is on the bottle that we take.

Do i have a lawsuit?Where do i start if i do?Help me thanks.

by **ashly** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 11:14 am

My bf's mother takes 20 mg lisinipril. Its her first month of the 20's. She was taking 10 mg of lisinpril previously. Her dr prescribed 20's to her cause her blood pressure was to high. So any ways she had no clue of what 20 mg of lisinipril looked like. I was not able to look at it cause she didn't bring it up to my attention & also i was gone allot this month. Well any ways I have been on 20 mg of lisinpril myself for the last 12 years so i know exactly what 20 mg of lisinipril looks like. I look a look at her 20 mg of lisiniprils today & ah well they looked like somas or oxycodone nothing like the 20 mg's i am used to taking. I checked online what pill she had been taking & it was a 40 mg lisinpril. The pharmacy screwed up.

There is no way her or I switched pills either cause our lisiniprils were not even filled on the same day. They were filled by the same pharmacy though but not on the same day. Wouldnt exchange pills or nothing obviously. We make sure our name is on the bottle that we take.

Do i have a lawsuit?Where do i start if i do?Help me thanks.

she's suffered no damages, no lawsuit.

by **tiernan** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 11:20 am

No, it does not sound like you have a lawsuit. First of all, there must be an injury to prove which is not the case here. Secondly, you have to prove that this was not just "human error" and was intentionally done and/or something terrible happened due to a certain negligence.

by **freedom97** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 11:24 am

No, it does not sound like you have a lawsuit. First of all, there must be an injury to prove which is not the case here. Secondly, you have to prove that this was not just "human error" and was intentionally done and/or something terrible happened due to a certain negligence.

The first thing I encourage you to do is get some free legal help, especially because those are professionals and there are tons of people who will advise you for free, or a very small nominal fee.

by **calvert** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 11:26 am

No. Where there are no damages, there is no lawsuit. Lawsuits are based upon damages. If it had killed her, it might possibly be a lawsuit. However, there are situations where it is common error and they don't win. I am not sure what the standard is for pharmacy but it seems that doctors have to do something really egregious and not just a mistake. Have had lawsuits where an instruemnt was left inside and they had to go in to take it out.

Courts do not grant lawsuits easily. And more and more states are protecting doctors from lawsuits as want to keep doctors in the states. This is pharmacy and is similar.

But no matter what, if there are no damages and no harm, then there is nothing to sue for. Have to show some physical damage or emotional damage for a lawsuit to be effective. Can you file something, sure, but winning is something else and no attorney is likely to take it on contingency as must have some kind of damages - like loss of a limb or life or have to have an operation or it causes some great problem.

With 40 mg of lisinipril, I doubt that she has any damage to her system. Some medications have an area of effectiveness and that may vary and give the person as little as is effective so long as don't go over a certain figure.

It is hard to check on pills even if taking them for a long time as if the prescriptions are for generic, then they look different and are not the same. she can ask the pharmacy if this is the right medication as the previous ones were different and they can tell her if it is because it is generic or if there was a mistake.

as t o you switching pills, if you take 20 mg and she takes 20 mg. then she wouldn't have gotten the 40 mg that way. If this is a tablet, she may be able to split the tablet and have twice as much and skip a month's prescription. that can be a benefit. However, not if it is a gel or capsule. I understand that it is a pill. She could ask the pharmacist if she can just split the pills and do that. Pharmacy should know of the error though as someone needs to be more careful adn they probably have a record of whoever filled the prescription. So if the person had too many errors, they may take action. So be sure to tell them and have them check one of the pills to make sure and if you are right and it is 40 instead of 20 mg of the correct pill, she might be able to just split the tablet and wait another month to fill her prescription again, or can get the correct pill now. i suggest she split it so long as there is no reason not to do so. a reason not to do so is if it has a coating that keeps it from melting until it is in the stomach or something like that. I was splitting my husband's norvasc as he had 2 levels to take and then BP was so good we were able to stop the pill totally. Now we split the warfarin as he takes a whole pill 2 days a week and a half pill other days.

I hoope this helps but you should check with pharmacist to be sure that this is a 40 mg. and that the prescirption, the last one from doctor was a 20 mg. If that prescription is 40 and she thinks it is 20, then she needs to call the doctor to clarify. Good luck. ]

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