Do You Have a Defective Drug Claim or a Medical Malpractice Claim?

If you have experienced serious or life-altering complications from a drug that your doctor prescribed, you may be entitled to financial compensation for your financial and non-financial losses. As a patient, you have the right to make informed decisions about your care, and pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers both have a duty to avoid providing patients with dangerous and defective drugs.

So, if you have a claim involving drug complications, should you sue the pharmaceutical company or your healthcare provider?

The answer to this question depends on the circumstances of your case. While both of these can be viable options, to seek just compensation, you need to pursue the right option under the specific circumstances at hand.

When Can Drug Companies Be Held Liable for Drug Complications?

Pharmaceutical companies can be held liable for drug complications when they sell defective drugs. A drug can be deemed “defective” based on one or more of the following:

• A problem with the drug’s formulation or ingredients (a “design defect”);
• A problem with the drug’s manufacturing, shipment, or storage (a “manufacturing defect”); or,
• A problem with the drug’s warning label (a “failure to warn”).

Determining whether a drug is defective requires a thorough investigation—including laboratory testing and a legal analysis of the sufficiency of the drug’s warning label. With that said, many popular drugs are subject to ongoing defective drug litigation—and, if you have a claim, you may be able to join an existing multidistrict litigation (MDL) proceeding and take advantage of an investigation that has already been done.

Some examples of medications that are currently the subject of MDL proceedings involving drug defect allegations include:

• Fosamax
• GLP-1 receptor agonists (Mounjaro, Ozempic, Rybelsus, and Wegovy)
• Prescription opiates
• Taxotere
• Zantac
• Valsartan
• Zostavax

Again, these are just examples. Pharmaceutical companies are currently facing lawsuits involving other drugs as well—and there are almost certainly far more potential defective drug lawsuits out there. With this in mind, if you have questions or concerns about a possible drug defect, including an inadequate warning, it could be well worth talking to a lawyer about your legal rights.

A key aspect of defective drug lawsuits is that they involve the rule of “strict liability.” In strict liability cases, proof of negligence is not required. This means that filing a defective drug claim against a pharmaceutical company doesn’t necessarily require proof that the company was aware (or even should have been aware) of the problem. If a drug is defective, this alone can be enough to justify a claim for financial compensation against its manufacturer.

When Can Healthcare Providers Be Held Liable for Drug Complications?

Now, what about filing a medical malpractice claim against your healthcare provider? If your doctor prescribed you a defective drug, is your doctor also liable for your losses?

The short answer is, “It depends.”

Unlike drug defect claims, medical malpractice claims are not governed by strict liability. Instead, proof of negligence is required in these cases. In other words, to hold your doctor accountable, you must be able to prove that your doctor should have provided a different medical recommendation.

As a result, if your doctor had no way of knowing that the drug he or she prescribed was defective, then you may not have a medical malpractice claim (at least not based on your doctor’s prescription). If your doctor had no way of knowing that the drug was dangerous based on the research that was currently available, your doctor may have done enough to comply with the law—even if he or she unknowingly prescribed a defective drug.

On the other hand, if your doctor should have known about the risks a particular drug presented, this is a scenario in which you may be able to hire a lawyer to hold your doctor accountable. Likewise, if your doctor was aware of the risks and ignored them, you may be able to hold your doctor accountable in this scenario as well. If other doctors had provided different recommendations in similar circumstances, this is the underpinning of medical malpractice liability.

Which Claim (or Claims) Should You File?

With all of this in mind, if you are dealing with serious or life-altering complications from a prescription drug, which claim (or claims) should you file?

Answering this question will involve working closely with an experienced lawyer who can provide a comprehensive assessment of your legal rights. This means that you will want to choose a lawyer who has experience handling both defective drug claims against pharmaceutical companies and medical malpractice claims against healthcare providers.

If you are eligible to join an existing MDL proceeding against a drug company, this may be your best option. However, it isn’t your only option, and it is important to make sure that you make an informed decision about how to proceed with your best interests in mind. If you are eligible to join an MDL proceeding, you could still have a claim against your healthcare provider as well, and this could potentially provide a shorter route toward recovering just compensation.

In short, there are several important decisions you need to make—and, practically speaking, you won’t be able to make these decisions on your own. You will need to rely on the advice and insights of a lawyer who has experience representing patients in your present circumstances. At Searcy Denney, we have extensive experience pursuing defective drug claims and medical malpractice claims on behalf of patients and their families, and we can help you seek just compensation by all means available.

Discuss Your Legal Rights with a Florida Defective Drug Lawyer at Searcy Denney

Do you need to know more about seeking financial compensation for serious or life-altering complications from a defective drug? If so, we encourage you to contact us promptly for more information. To speak with an experienced lawyer at Searcy Denney about your legal rights in confidence, call us at 800-780-8607 or request a free consultation online today.