TROOPER'S WIDOW SUES MAKERS OF COLD DRUG

Saw an interesting note in the January-February 2006 Vested Interest, the Illinois Trial Lawyers Newsletter. The note described a lawsuit recently filed by the widow of an Oklahoma state trooper who was gunned down by someone high on methamphetamine. The widow filed suit against several makers and sellers of the drug pseudoephedrine. The lawsuit appears to allege that the makers and sellers of the drug were aware the meth addicts were buying pseudoephedrine, not for medicinal purposes, but to extract certain ingredients that would allow them to make, and presumably get high on meth. The widow is also alleging that the defendant companies[including Pfizer, Wal-Mart and Walgreens] knew how to make pseudoephedrine in such a manner that drug addicts couldn't extract the meth ingredients. Presumably the widow has evidence[probably from the criminal trial] that the shooter purchased the medication, extracted the necessary ingredients, got high and then killed her husband. Even if that is the case, the drug manufacturers will certainly argue that the risk of methheads buying a cold medication, altering it, and then cooking up meth wasn't foreseeable - and as a result, they wouldn't have any duty to prevent it. It will be interesting to see if the defendants did in fact have an alternative way to make the drug where vital ingredients couldn't be extracted. If so, that would suggest they were on notice that addicts were using the drug for alternative purposes. That fact may be critical in rebutting the inevitable defense that the makers couldn't forsee this odd string of events taking place. In light of the way meth has taken hold in the Midwest, for some time now, perhaps the defendants did know something like this was possible.