Many lawsuits against pharmacies settled in silence

— -- According to the federal lawsuit she later filed against Walgreens, Givens, then 29, suffered weeks of "nausea, vomiting, neurologic symptoms … dizziness, lightheadedness, chills and shortness of breath." A medical exam showed her fetus was not developing normally. She miscarried in early April.

She said the loss of her baby was a direct result of Walgreens' giving her the wrong drug, and she and her husband, Courtenay, sought actual and punitive damages in excess of $75,000. Her attorneys contended Walgreens failed her on multiple levels in terms of supervising its personnel and verifying the prescription with her doctor.

Was Walgreens really to blame? What caused the error? There is no way to know: The case was settled out of court a few weeks after the lawsuit was filed. Givens, her husband and her attorneys now cannot talk about it publicly because they signed a confidentiality agreement.

USA TODAY found a number of lawsuits that alleged corporate malfeasance in cases of pharmacy errors at Walgreens and CVS. Many were settled, and nearly all the settlements included confidentiality agreements.

"Settlements buy silence," attorney J. Douglas Peters says. "Attorneys have an ethical Catch-22: They have a duty to their client and a duty to the public good. But their first duty is to their client. And if the client is going to get paid, the big-box pharmacies insist on silence."

That's why Peters, who practices in Detroit, is unable to talk specifically about individual cases of pharmacy errors he has settled over the years. But he says he has seen a pattern in which drug chains settled cases after they were asked to produce data revealing what happens behind the drug counter, such as how many prescriptions pharmacists are expected to fill in how much time.