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Clifford v. Geritom Med9/28/2004
Respondent James Clifford brought an action for the wrongful death of his mother, Doris Clifford, who died after taking prescription medication mistakenly dispensed to her by appellant Geritom Med, Inc., a pharmacy. Geritom in turn brought a third-party action against respondents Dr. Michael Gmitro, Clifford's physician, nurse Susan Duffy, and her clinic, Park Nicollet Clinic, and against respondents North Memorial Hospital, where Clifford died, and two doctors who treated her there, Drs. Monica Myklebust and Bruce Mack. The district court dismissed the third-party defendants for lack of common liability. In the first jury trial, in which Dr. Gmitro and nurse Duffy were included on the verdict form for the purpose of allocating fault, the jury determined Geritom was not negligent, and that Dr. Gmitro and/or nurse Duffy were negligent, but that their negligence was not a direct cause of Clifford's death. The district court granted a new trial on liability alone. Near the close of the second trial, the district court gave Geritom the option of including Dr. Gmitro and nurse Duffy on the verdict form, and Geritom did so. The jury found Geritom causally negligent and Dr. Gmitro and nurse Duffy not negligent.
Geritom appealed, and this court reinstated the first jury's verdict finding Geritom not negligent, holding that the district court had abused its discretion in granting a new trial. Clifford v. Geritom Med, Inc., No. CX-02-2041, 2003 WL 21652269 (Minn. App. July 15, 2003) (Clifford I). The supreme court reversed, concluding that the district court properly granted Clifford a new trial. Clifford v. Geritom Med, Inc., 681 N.W.2d 680, 689 (Minn. 2004) (Clifford II). The supreme court remanded the matter to this court to decide the issues that this court did not reach in the first appeal. We affirm.
FACTS
On June 17, 1999, Doris Clifford, age 84, was recovering from a cold and called her doctor's office seeking relief for a phlegm problem. Her physician, respondent Michael Gmitro, returned her call and prescribed the drug Liquibid, a decongestant. He wrote a prescription for the drug and gave it to his nurse, respondent Susan Duffy, to call Clifford's pharmacy to place the order. Duffy called in the order to appellant Geritom Med, Inc., a "closed-door" or "dispensing" pharmacy, which takes the prescriptions over the telephone and then delivers them directly to patients. The Geritom pharmacist who took the order wrote down the medication Lithobid, which contains lithium and is used to treat bipolar or manic-depressive disorders.
Geritom filled the prescription, as recorded by its pharmacist, for Lithobid. When Clifford received the medication, she put a small label of her own on the bottle with the words "Lithobid-decongestant."
Eight days later, Clifford arrived at respondent North Memorial Medical Center by ambulance, having experienced various symptoms. She remained in the hospital for testing. In accordance with its practice, the hospital dispensed drugs from its pharmacy and continued administering preadmission medication, including the Lithobid.
On June 29, Clifford suffered "an acute decrease in mental status." After testing her lithium blood level, the Lithobid was stopped and the doctors sought to clear it from her system. Despite these efforts, her condition deteriorated and she died a week later from complications from lithium toxicity.
DECISION
I.
The issues that this court did not address in the first appeal, but that require answers as a result of remand by the supreme court are: (1) did the trial court err in denying Geritom's motion after the second trial for a third trial t
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