The Pharmacist's Duty to Warn in Texas

Abstract

In this Article, Professor Myhra examines the possibility that pharmacists in Texas will face greater exposure to tort liability in the future both because of their high level of expertise and because of their profession's dramatic shift in emphasis over the past thirty years concerning the proper roles and responsibilities of pharmacists. In Part II, she considers the traditional paradigm. She describes its view of pharmacists, the value judgments of courts that have relied upon this paradigm, and the public policy served by limiting liability to only those cases in which pharmacists have made a technical error in filling a prescription. Part III articulates the parameters of the contemporary practice paradigm, and discusses the public policy advanced by those courts that have imposed liability on pharmacists based upon common law principles when a patient suffers an undesirable outcome as a result of the pharmacist's failure to warn of the potential risks associated with the prescribed drug therapy. In Part IV, Professor Myhra examines federal and state legislation requiring pharmacists to counsel patients and warn of potential drug risks. In the end, she suggests that these statutorily imposed duties, fortified by the increasing acceptance of the contemporary practice paradigm, may compel the Texas judiciary to adopt the contemporary paradigm and to join those jurisdictions that have redefined the pharmacist's standard of care to include the obligation to warn of drug risks.