Prince Heirs Sue Illinois Hospital And Walgreens

Chris O – Prince
Performing during the halftime show at the Super Bowl XLI football game in Miami.

Prince’s heirs filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Walgreens and the Illinois Hospital that treated the star after he suffered an opioid overdosed, alleging they gave him inadequate care that led to his death.

The suit, filed in Cook County, Ill., alleges a pharmacist and doctor at Trinity Medical Center in Moline, Ill., did not appropriately treat and investigate Prince’s April 15, 2016 overdose. The Suits adds that Prince died “as a direct and proximate result cause of one or more … deviations from the standards of care.”

Pharmacists at two Illinois Walgreens branches are also accused of “dispensing prescription medications not valid for a legitimate medical purpose.” 

The “Kiss Kiss” singer died April 21, 2016 of an accidental fentanyl overdose at his Paisley Park studio in Minneapolis. Prince reportedly might not have known he was taking the drug, which was laced with counterfeit pills made to look like Vicodin. Authorities do not know how Prince obtained the pills.

Tom Petty also died of a fentanyl overdose last year.  

A week before Prince died he passed out on a flight from an Atlanta concert. The private plane he was riding in made an emergency stop in Moline, where Prince was rushed to Trinity Medical Center. Hospital staff found a pill on him that was marked as Vicodin. Pharmacists confirmed that the pill was in fact Vicodin after conducting tests, and then returned it to Prince, according to hospital documents. 

But last week prosecutors said that no chemical testing was done on the pill and that evidence suggested it was counterfeit and laced with Fentanyl. 

The suit alleges that the emergency room physician who oversaw Prince’s care, Dr. Nicole Mancha, failed to timely diagnose the singer, treat the overdose and provide appropriate counseling. 

The accusations against Walgreens stem from prescriptions that were given to Prince but written under the name of his bodyguard. The suit alleges that Dr. Michael Todd Schulenberg admitted to prescribing Prince Oxycodone under the name of his body guard to protect the singer’s privacy. Schulenberg denies this but paid $30,000 to settle allegations that the drug was prescribed illegally. 

The attorneys representing Prince’s family released a statement saying they would make additional announcements later. 

“Prince’s family wishes, through its investigation, to shed additional light on what happened to Prince. At the same time further light on the opiate epidemic will hopefully help the fight to save lives,” the attorneys said. “If Prince’s death helps save lives, then all was not lost.”