Facts
- A pharmacy customer obtained controlled-substance prescription medications from multiple pharmacies.
- While allegedly under the influence of those prescription drugs, the customer drove and caused a collision that killed one person and seriously injured another.
- The decedent’s estate, injured parties, and family members sued several pharmacies that had filled the customer’s prescriptions.
- Plaintiffs alleged the pharmacies knew or should have known, based on records and regulatory obligations, that the customer was obtaining multiple controlled-substance prescriptions and posed a risk to the public.
- Plaintiffs asserted negligence and negligence per se, contending the pharmacies should have declined to fill further prescriptions or otherwise acted to prevent foreseeable harm.
Issues
- Whether, under Nevada common law, a pharmacy owes a duty of care to unidentified third parties injured by a customer who drives while impaired by lawfully dispensed prescription drugs.
- Whether Nevada pharmacy statutes and regulations governing controlled-substance dispensing and recordkeeping support negligence per se claims by members of the general public injured in an automobile collision.
Decision
- The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed dismissal for failure to state a claim.
- The court held pharmacies do not owe a common-law duty of care to unidentifiable third parties injured by a customer’s conduct after the pharmacy dispenses lawfully prescribed medication.
- The court held Nevada’s pharmacy statutes and regulations at issue were not intended to protect the general public from the type of injury alleged and therefore could not support negligence per se on these facts.
Legal Principles
- Duty is a question of law; absent a recognized special relationship, Nevada generally imposes no duty to control another person’s conduct or to protect others from that person’s actions.
- A pharmacy-customer relationship, without more, does not create a duty to protect the public from a customer’s later impaired driving.
- Negligence per se requires that the statute or regulation (1) clearly defines a standard of conduct, (2) is intended to prevent the type of harm that occurred, and (3) is intended to protect the class of persons of which the plaintiff is a member.
- Pharmacy dispensing and recordkeeping statutes aimed at regulating pharmacy practice and patient-related controls do not, without clear legislative intent, establish tort duties to unidentified third-party motorists or bystanders for injuries from a medicated driver.
Conclusion
The Nevada Supreme Court upheld dismissal of wrongful-death and personal-injury claims against pharmacies, ruling that pharmacies owed no common-law duty to unidentified members of the public injured by a customer’s impaired driving and that Nevada’s pharmacy statutes and regulations did not support negligence per se for such third-party claims.