Before the Court en banc. Opinion by Justice Parraguirre.
The Nevada Supreme Court, for the first time, adopted the learned-intermediary doctrine in the context of a pharmacist/customer relationship. The doctrine holds that a pharmacist has no duty to warn of a prescribed medication’s general risks. The doctrine originally held a drug manufacturer immune from liability to a patient as long as the manufacturer provided the relevant safety information to the patient’s doctor. In a pharmacist/customer relationship, the justification is that the doctor is in a better position to warn the customer of a medication’s general risks. The doctrine prevents the pharmacist from second-guessing a doctor’s judgment in an effort to avoid his or her own liability. However, the pharmacist is not shielded from liability when he or she has knowledge of a customer-specific risk. When the pharmacist has knowledge of such a risk, he or she has a duty to use reasonable care in warning the customer or notifying the prescribing doctor of the risk. In this case, a customer died after being prescribed a sulfa-based medication, despite the pharmacist’s knowledge of the customer’s sulfa allergy. The Court ruled that the sulfa allergy was not the generalized risk for which the learned-intermediary doctrine shields a pharmacist from liability. The pharmacist had knowledge of the customer-specific risk, and factual issues existed regarding whether the pharmacist breached her duty to warn the customer or notify the customer’s doctor. (Joseph P. Schrage, Associate in the Las Vegas office of McDonald Carano Wilson).
