SC orders Mercury to pay damages for selling wrong drug

The Supreme Court has ordered Mercury Drug, the country’s biggest chain of drug stores, to pay damages for dispensing the wrong medicine that caused a customer to fall sleep and figure in a vehicular accident. But the high court lowered the damages to P75,000 from the original P250,000 awarded by a lower court. The Supreme Court first division, in a decision penned by Associate Justice Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez, ruled against the Mercury Drug petition seeking a reversal of the rulings by a Quezon City regional trial court and the Court of Appeals that found the company liable for damages to its customer, Sebastian Baking. The high court said that a Mercury Drug employee was grossly negligent in selling to Baking the drug called Dormicum, a highly potent sleeping tablet, instead of Diamicron, prescribed by the respondent's doctor for his blood sugar. "The vehicular accident could not have occured had petitioner's employee been careful in reading the prescription. Without the potent effects of Dormicum, it was unlikely that respondent would fall asleep while driving his car, resulting in a collision," it stated in the decision. In the nearly 14-year-old case, the high court cited the new Civil Code which states that Mercury cannot argue that Baking did not suffer damages from the negligence of one of its employees. Article 2176 of the Civil Code states: "Whoever by act or omission causes damage to another, there being fault or negligence, if there is no pre-existing contractual relation between the parties, is called a quasi-delict..." A quasi-delict concerns negligence as the breach of a non-willful, extra-contractual obligation to third parties. "It is generally recognized that the drugstore business is imbued with public interest. The health and safety of the people will be put into jeopardy if drugstore employees will not exercise the highest degree of care and diligence in selling medicines," the high court said in its ruling. "Considering that a fatal mistake could be a matter of life and death for a buying patient, the said employee should have been very cautious in dispensing medicines. She should have verified whether the medicine she gave respondent was indeed the one prescribed by his physician," the Supreme Court said. Chief Justice Reynato Puno and Associate Justices Aldolfo Azcuna and Cancio Garcia concurred in the decision. Mercury Drug was ordered to pay P50,000 for moral damages, P25,000 for exemplary damages, and attorney’s fees and litigation expenses. A Quezon City court had originally told the company to pay a total of P250,000 in damages. The high court dismissed Mercury Drug’s argument that the accident was caused by Baking's negligence in driving his car. Court records showed that a doctor had told Baking to take Diamicron for his blood sugar after a medical test. Baking then went to Mercury Drug’s Alabang branch, where a salesperson apparently misread Diamicron for the sleeping tablet Dormicum. On the third day from taking the medicine, Baking figured in a vehicular accident when he fell asleep while driving and figured in a collision with another car. Suspecting the medicine may have had something to do with the accident, he showed the drug he was sold to his physician, who was shocked to find that Baking had been sold the sleeping tablet instead of the medicine prescribed for his blood sugar. The incident prompted Baking to file a case before a Quezon City court. -GMANews.TV