Woman tricked into abortion sues pharmacy

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**Ouze**

source

Woman tricked into abortion sues Florida pharmacy
Remee Jo Lee miscarried after her boyfriend gave her pills she was misled to believe were simple antibiotics.
By M. Alex Johnson, Staff Writer, NBC News

A Florida woman who had a miscarriage after her boyfriend tricked her into taking pills that can cause abortions is now suing the pharmacy where the drug was dispensed.

The woman, Remee Jo Lee, 27, says in the suit that she thought she was getting amoxicillin, an antibiotic, when she accepted the pills in March from her boyfriend, who falsely said they'd been prescribed by his father — an obstetrician who'd confirmed her pregnancy.

Instead, she was given misoprostol, a stomach ulcer medicine that can cause abortion and birth defects.

A few days later, Lee had a miscarriage, according to the suit, which was just filed in Hillsborough County Circuit Court and was first reported Monday by The Tampa Tribune.

The boyfriend, John Andrew Welden, 28, pleaded guilty last month to federal charges that he forged his father's signature on the prescription and conspired with an employee of the pharmacy to order the misoprostol. He faces almost 14 years in prison when he is sentenced in December.

Police found text messages showing that Lee, who met Welden in 2012 at the gentlemen's club where she worked, wanted to keep the baby but that Welden didn't.

In the plea agreement, Welden said he asked an employee of Sunlake Pharmacy and Compounding Lab in Lutz, north of Tampa, to fill the fake prescription and provide a fraudulently labeled pill bottle. The plea agreement said the Sunlake employee knew Welden was up to no good.

Lee's suit accuses Sunlake of negligence, arguing that "a reasonably competent, concerned and safe pharmacist would have recognized the prescription ... was grossly in error."

**Snrub**

That guy deserves a kick in the balls from someone with size 14 feet wearing steel cap boots. The pharmacy guy also needs a good hard slap too.

**d-usa**

I don't know what the pharmacy has to do with it. The individual employee is fair game though.

**SilverMK2**

d-usa wrote:
I don't know what the pharmacy has to do with it. The individual employee is fair game though.

I would agree. There is a point to be made that the pharmacy should have more robust systems in place toprevent this type of thing but i am not sure they carry too much of the weight of the blame...

**Snrub**

I wasn't saying the pharmacy needs a slap, i was refering to the sketchy guy dolling out dodgy scrips for his seedy mate.

**Kilkrazy**

d-usa wrote:
I don't know what the pharmacy has to do with it. The individual employee is fair game though.

In general, companies are responsible for the actions their employees perform in the normal course of business.

If the phamacist made a genuine error in mislabelling the pill bottle, the employer's insurance would probably have to pay damages.

In this case it is claimed that a criminal act has been done, which would absolve the company of guilt, and the burden should fall on the staff member.

**Dreadclaw69**

d-usa wrote:
I don't know what the pharmacy has to do with it. The individual employee is fair game though.

My thoughts too. Both the individuals should be facing the consequences of their actions. The pharmacy's liability extends to what their staff does in the execution of their duties - the pharmacist went beyond this and committed a criminal act that was not part of his duties.

**KingCracker**

d-usa wrote:
I don't know what the pharmacy has to do with it. The individual employee is fair game though.

Money. She was a promising young mother, that had an open slate for her childs future! A future that was torn away from her grasp by this evil....probably very wealthy Pharmacy

**Orlanth**

In the plea agreement, Welden said he asked an employee of Sunlake Pharmacy and Compounding Lab in Lutz, north of Tampa, to fill the fake prescription and provide a fraudulently labeled pill bottle. The plea agreement said the Sunlake employee knew Welden was up to no good.

Plea bargaining, a sign of the US medievalesque judicial system.

The employee plea bargained in all likelihood because it guarantees he cannot face more serious charges. He might not actually be guilty of anything, but when the prosecuters and police get out their book of threats, its easy for a shop worker with no money for adequate legal representation to take the safer route.
Its easy enough to lie to a pharmatist and get potential dangerous medication, it was a forged prescription.
The pharmacist could (normally) claim to have been lied to, but with threats of charges of 'accomplicity to murder' looming, its safer to plea bargain whether actually guilty or not.
Plea bargains are valid in courts without actually having any need for any burden of proof. And this plea bargain makes the prescution case against Welden easier, and also drops the company in it as the employee was working with their stock on their time under their auspice.
Do I know this is what happens. No, I don't. But its a reasonable doubt, and that reasonable doubt has already been handwaved away under third party pressure.

Lee's suit accuses Sunlake of negligence, arguing that "a reasonably competent, concerned and safe pharmacist would have recognized the prescription ... was grossly in error."

This assumes the pharmacy wasn't lied to, the end user never bought the medicine, a third party did. Nevertheless there is enough there for a rabid lawyer to get their teeth into, as the Corp will likely have little choice but to settle quickly due to negative publicity arising from the case it will be easy to get a lawyer. 'Sunlake kills babies' is not what they want to see dominating the next two financial quarters,

**Frazzled**

Snrub wrote:
That guy deserves a kick in the balls from someone with size 14 feet wearing steel cap boots. The pharmacy guy also needs a good hard slap too.

Why? Sounds like he should just get a small fine for forging a prescription.
After all, fetuses aren't babies right?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

SilverMK2 wrote:
d-usa wrote:
I don't know what the pharmacy has to do with it. The individual employee is fair game though.

I would agree. There is a point to be made that the pharmacy should have more robust systems in place toprevent this type of thing but i am not sure they carry too much of the weight of the blame...

Why? Its just a prescription. Actually recent case law has declared that anyone can now have access without a prescription. Don't blame the pharmacy, blame the court system.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kilkrazy wrote:
d-usa wrote:
I don't know what the pharmacy has to do with it. The individual employee is fair game though.

In general, companies are responsible for the actions their employees perform in the normal course of business.

If the phamacist made a genuine error in mislabelling the pill bottle, the employer's insurance would probably have to pay damages.

In this case it is claimed that a criminal act has been done, which would absolve the company of guilt, and the burden should fall on the staff member.

Agreed fully.

**SilverMK2**

Frazzled wrote:

Why? Its just a prescription. Actually recent case law has declared that anyone can now have access without a prescription. Don't blame the pharmacy, blame the court system. .

The employee was able to print off drug labels which did not correspond to the drugs he was supplying. I work in a hospital and a lot of patient labels and so on cannot be printed without the appropriate things being present on the system - this makes it much harder to print things off that are not correct or have not been properly ordered etc. Also makes it much harder to falsify things.

A place of employment is responsible for ensuring their systems are secure from misuse.

**whembly**

SilverMK2 wrote:
Frazzled wrote:

Why? Its just a prescription. Actually recent case law has declared that anyone can now have access without a prescription. Don't blame the pharmacy, blame the court system. .

The employee was able to print off drug labels which did not correspond to the drugs he was supplying. I work in a hospital and a lot of patient labels and so on cannot be printed without the appropriate things being present on the system - this makes it much harder to print things off that are not correct or have not been properly ordered etc. Also makes it much harder to falsify things.

A place of employment is responsible for ensuring their systems are secure from misuse.

False... in the outpatient setting... it's all too easy to do something like this.

This is how narcotics are stolen by employees... it's not easy to control this.

I know... this environment is where I currently work.

EDIT: I'm just relaying how this is here in the states... I'm curious how you guys mitigate narcotic diversion.

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

Frazzled wrote:
Snrub wrote:
That guy deserves a kick in the balls from someone with size 14 feet wearing steel cap boots. The pharmacy guy also needs a good hard slap too.

Why? Sounds like he should just get a small fine for forging a prescription.
After all, fetuses aren't babies right?

Are you comparing pro-choice arguments to someone killing a fetus without the mothers consent?

**Frazzled**

SilverMK2 wrote:
Frazzled wrote:

Why? Its just a prescription. Actually recent case law has declared that anyone can now have access without a prescription. Don't blame the pharmacy, blame the court system. .

The employee was able to print off drug labels which did not correspond to the drugs he was supplying. I work in a hospital and a lot of patient labels and so on cannot be printed without the appropriate things being present on the system - this makes it much harder to print things off that are not correct or have not been properly ordered etc. Also makes it much harder to falsify things.

A place of employment is responsible for ensuring their systems are secure from misuse.

No, there's generally a legal doctrine of intervening bad acts that comes into play here.
Its the boyfriend and his accomplice. Again however, what exactly are you going to charge them with?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Snrub wrote:
That guy deserves a kick in the balls from someone with size 14 feet wearing steel cap boots. The pharmacy guy also needs a good hard slap too.

Why? Sounds like he should just get a small fine for forging a prescription.
After all, fetuses aren't babies right?

Are you comparing pro-choice arguments to someone killing a fetus without the mothers consent?

Hey its with the father's consent. Its not a life, its just some cells. At worst we're talking simple assault due to cramps. But then again I've known many many TOO MANY! Mexican food places that have done far worse to me.

**whembly**

Frazzled wrote:

Hey its with the father's consent. Its not a life, its just some cells. At worst we're talking simple assault due to cramps. But then again I've known many many TOO MANY! Mexican food places that have done far worse to me.

Man... you're playing with fire today.

**Frazzled**

whembly wrote:
Frazzled wrote:

Hey its with the father's consent. Its not a life, its just some cells. At worst we're talking simple assault due to cramps. But then again I've known many many TOO MANY! Mexican food places that have done far worse to me.

Man... you're playing with fire today.

Mmm fire pretty.

Well we could charge the BF with a crime against her person. Again assault or mayhaps there is some colorful charge about harm caused by tampering with a prescription or even poisoning (that wouldn't stick though).

However at best she only has a property interest in the cells. They are not life after all, just property. If they were a separate life, then abortion would be illegal...

**whembly**

Frazzled wrote:
whembly wrote:
Frazzled wrote:

Hey its with the father's consent. Its not a life, its just some cells. At worst we're talking simple assault due to cramps. But then again I've known many many TOO MANY! Mexican food places that have done far worse to me.

Man... you're playing with fire today.

Mmm fire pretty.

Well we could charge the BF with a crime against her person. Again assault or mayhaps there is some colorful charge about harm caused by tampering with a prescription or even poisoning (that wouldn't stick though).

However at best she only has a property interest in the cells. They are not life after all, just property. If they were a separate life, then abortion would be illegal...

Not that it really matters... but I wonder how many weeks she was pregnant.

**Frazzled**

That might matter a good bit depending on jurisdiction and law.

Now some jurisdictions have ruled that the fetus is a life and thus subject to harm, but that privacy trumps while the fetus is not viable. Thus the person can be convicted with harm related to a baby and still permit abortion.

**SilverMK2**

whembly wrote:

False... in the outpatient setting... it's all too easy to do something like this.

This is how narcotics are stolen by employees... it's not easy to control this.

I don't have a great deal to do with drugs so I am afraid I could not tell you how it works here. However, I do have some knowledge of radioisotopes and their production, handling and usage, and it would be very hard for those to be inappropriately created, used or handled without someone knowing - because there are many systems in place designed to prevent people from doing stupid or intentionally harmful things with them.

Again, I'm not suggesting that you should have to design a system which prevents anything bad from happening, but that it is the employer's responsibility to ensure that their processes are such that it is as easy as possible to prevent and detect tampering/misuse/etc.

EDIT: I'm just relaying how this is here in the states... I'm curious how you guys mitigate narcotic diversion.

I think it is generally less of an issue here since most of our medication is subsidised.

Edit: Fixed confused sentence

**hotsauceman1**

The man can be charged with illegally admnistering an abortion, and some other hefty crimes. HE can also be charged with fraud

**SilverMK2**

Frazzled wrote:
Again however, what exactly are you going to charge them with?

I don't know. I didn't even say I would charge them with anything. I simply said that the employer could potentially take some blame for not having appropriate safeguards in place to prevent this type of thing from happening.

**Frazzled**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
The man can be charged with illegally admnistering an abortion, and some other hefty crimes. HE can also be charged with fraud

Interesting. Is that an actual crime in the state?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

SilverMK2 wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Again however, what exactly are you going to charge them with?

I don't know. I didn't even say I would charge them with anything. I simply said that the employer could potentially take some blame for not having appropriate safeguards in place to prevent this type of thing from happening.

And I'll give to you that that is a fair argument. I'm sure it would work in California.

**hotsauceman1**

I believe in some states it might be. Not sure about florida.

**whembly**

SilverMK2 wrote:
whembly wrote:

False... in the outpatient setting... it's all too easy to do something like this.

This is how narcotics are stolen by employees... it's not easy to control this.

I don't have a great deal to do with drugs so I am afraid I could not tell you how it works here. However, I do have some knowledge of radioisotopes and their production, handling and usage, and it would be very hard for those to be inappropriately created, used or handled without someone knowing - because there are many systems in place designed to prevent people from doing stupid or intentionally harmful things with them.

Again, I'm not suggesting that you should have to design a system which prevents anything bad from happening, but that it is the employer's responsibility to ensure that their processes are such that it is as easy as possible to prevent and detect tampering/misuse/etc.

EDIT: I'm just relaying how this is here in the states... I'm curious how you guys mitigate narcotic diversion.

I think it is generally less of an issue here since most of our medication is subsidised.

Edit: Fixed confused sentence

There are State and Federal LAWS that dictate proper dispensing of medications. If the Pharmacy is in compliance, then the fault lies directly with that employee.

**SilverMK2**

whembly wrote:
There are State and Federal LAWS that dictate proper dispensing of medications. If the Pharmacy is in compliance, then the fault lies directly with that employee.

Again, I am not saying that the pharmacy has broken laws etc (obviously unless they have broken laws regards the dispensing/storage/etc of drugs), simply that some blame for not ensuring their systems are as failsafe as possible could be attached to them.

Look at Stafford Hospital in the UK - massive news story due to rampant poor care, higher than expected death rates, etc, etc... it is not just the people directly responsible for the poor care/etc who are being investigated and punished, but those responsible for enforcing the systems that should have been in place to prevent those abuses are also in the firing line.

I come from an engineering background and a lot of emphasis is placed on risk prevention and risk management - you should always ensure that you have ways of preventing or mitigating risks built into any system; physical or organisational.

**whembly**

SilverMK2 wrote:
whembly wrote:
There are State and Federal LAWS that dictate proper dispensing of medications. If the Pharmacy is in compliance, then the fault lies directly with that employee.

Again, I am not saying that the pharmacy has broken laws etc (obviously unless they have broken laws regards the dispensing/storage/etc of drugs), simply that some blame for not ensuring their systems are as failsafe as possible could be attached to them.

I totally understand where you're coming from...

That's not how liability is ascertained here in the States, particularly, how rigorously Pharmacies in general are regulated.

I would argue that until we know for sure, the Pharmacy is in compliance to all rules and regulation. Because, otherwise, they could be sanctioned / lose their licence... not to mention any criminal liabilities.

**Frazzled**

If only the baby had availed itself of its Second Amendment rights and had a Fulton Armory Titan with .308 in battery. Won't someone think of the children!

**SilverMK2**

Frazzled wrote:
If only the baby had availed itself of its Second Amendment rights and had a Fulton Armory Titan with .308 in battery. Won't someone think of the children!

If the girlfriend had a gun it would have offered her magical protection against any and all harm in the first place

**cadbren**

SilverMK2 wrote:

Look at Stafford Hospital in the UK - massive news story due to rampant poor care, higher than expected death rates, etc, etc... it is not just the people directly responsible for the poor care/etc who are being investigated and punished, but those responsible for enforcing the systems that should have been in place to prevent those abuses are also in the firing line.

Different issue there. That sounds like negligence and/or mismanagement of staff and resources. The case here is a deliberate act of illegally aquiring drugs and then lying about their nature to the recipient.

I come from an engineering background and a lot of emphasis is placed on risk prevention and risk management - you should always ensure that you have ways of preventing or mitigating risks built into any system; physical or organisational.

How do you mitigate against someone knowledgable sabotaging a system? I think if anything, the pharmacy was a victim of fraud carried out by an employee working in collusion with the son of a doctor.
If the pharmacy did what was reasonable then they should be in the clear.

**Relapse**

SilverMK2 wrote:
whembly wrote:
There are State and Federal LAWS that dictate proper dispensing of medications. If the Pharmacy is in compliance, then the fault lies directly with that employee.

Again, I am not saying that the pharmacy has broken laws etc (obviously unless they have broken laws regards the dispensing/storage/etc of drugs), simply that some blame for not ensuring their systems are as failsafe as possible could be attached to them.

Look at Stafford Hospital in the UK - massive news story due to rampant poor care, higher than expected death rates, etc, etc... it is not just the people directly responsible for the poor care/etc who are being investigated and punished, but those responsible for enforcing the systems that should have been in place to prevent those abuses are also in the firing line.

I come from an engineering background and a lot of emphasis is placed on risk prevention and risk management - you should always ensure that you have ways of preventing or mitigating risks built into any system; physical or organisational.

Nothing more fun than working on a good FMEA!