Walgreens asks federal court to toss Evansville family's suit over vaccine mishap

EVANSVILLE — An Evansville family’s story of a botched vaccination at a local Walgreens captured national headlines in 2021, and two years later, the issue stands before a federal court in Indiana.

Now, a judge will decide if healthcare providers and workers’ legal protections preclude civil action brought by the family, among other legal issues.

As Alexandra and Joshua Price tell it, their routine trip for flu shots turned frightful when a Walgreens Co. employee accidentally gave their children, then aged 4 and 5, adult doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.

At the time, the family said they later took their 4-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter to a pediatric cardiologist, who said the girl had experienced high blood pressure and the boy suffered a rapid heartbeat.

The incident captured nationwide attention at a fraught time for public health officials who were tasked with convincing an often skeptical public to vaccinate against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which, to date, has killed more than 1.1 million Americans.

In October 2021, a spokesperson for the Deerfield, Illinois-based Walgreens Co. told the Courier & Press that “safety is our top priority, and due to privacy laws, we cannot comment on specific patient events."

That said, the spokesperson did not deny a vaccine mishap had occurred in Evansville.

Two years later, on Oct. 4, the Prices filed a civil suit against Walgreens and others, including the unnamed pharmacist who administered the shots, in Vanderburgh County Superior Court seeking “punitive damages, costs, plus all other relief allowed by law.”

Attorneys representing the Price family, Walgreens and Walgreens’ employees did not respond to interview requests for this article.

By the end of the month, Walgreens removed the case to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana after attorney Scott Tyler argued the Price’s complaint “asserts a claim arising under and governed by federal law.”

He also asked the court to dismiss the case.

The family's complaint, which names Joshua and Alexandra Price, their children and four other family members as plaintiffs, claims a Walgreens employee administered a series of vaccinations intended to protect against influenza using “unidentified syringes” the employee brought out in “Solo-style plastic cups.”

But about one-and-a-half hours after the family got their jabs, they said a Walgreens manager alerted them to a mistake: They all received adult doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, even though the shot was not yet approved for use in 4 and 5-year-old children.

According to the complaint, the adult version of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine contained three to 10 times the dosage of COVID-19 vaccines the CDC and U.S. Food and Drug Administration would later approve for use in young kids.

The Price’s attorney, Daniel J. Tuley, claimed the children experienced “elevated blood pressure, headaches [and] body aches” due to the incident. The family as a whole suffered “emotional distress,” Tuely wrote.

The Prices claim that after the mishap, Walgreens only provided them with proof of COVID-19 vaccination at the family's insistence. The company did not report the incident to the FDA’s Vaccine Adverse Reporting System, they claimed.

On Oct. 30, Walgreens fired back with a formal answer to the Price’s complaint in federal court.

Citing 10 legal defenses, the company argued neither it nor its employees bore responsibility for any alleged suffering incurred by the Prices and, in multiple instances, argued the family may have actually been at fault for “failing to avoid injury" or "mitigate damages.”

Walgreens' attorneys cited immunity from each of the Price’s claims of liability under the Public Readiness for Emergency Preparedness Act and its implementation during the COVID-19 pandemic — which granted healthcare providers broad protections from liability so long as an incident did not involve “willful negligence,” according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Tyler, alongside attorneys Lee Sitlinger and Abigail Fletcher, stated on Walgreen’s behalf that the company could not confirm the accuracy of the Price’s claims that they intended to receive vaccination against influenza rather than the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19.

Walgreens also implied in its formal answer that the Price’s complaint failed to account for the fact a third party, such as a vaccine manufacturer, could bear responsibility for the alleged mixup through the mislabelling of a vaccine or other negligence.

And, in multiple instances, Walgreens’ attorneys shifted the blame for any harm caused to the family, not its employees.

“[Walgreens] affirmatively states that the incident and ensuing damages, if any, about which Plaintiffs complain were caused or contributed by their own carelessness and negligence,” Tyler wrote in the filing.

The family’s “carelessness,” Tyler argued, served as a “complete bar” to their claims of wrongdoing by Walgreens or its employees, though the company offered few specifics as to how the Prices or their children acted with disregard for their health and wellbeing when they ostensibly sought to receive flu shots.

In another stated defense, Walgreens cited Indiana’s Comparative Faul Act, which precludes plaintiffs from receiving any damages, or imposes reduced damages, if they are found to have been just “51%” responsible for the injuries they incurred.

As of Wednesday afternoon, PACER, the online repository of federal court records, did not yet list when the parties would next appear in court.

The Prices are seeking a judgment “in an amount equal to their damages herein, punitive damages, costs, plus all other relief allowed by law,” their initial complaint states.

Walgreens has asked Judge Richard L. Young to dismiss the case without prejudice, cover its court costs and provide “all proper relief to which it may be entitled.”

Houston Harwood can be contacted at houston.harwood@courierpress.com

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Evansville family sues Walgreens years after reported vaccine mishap