The Pain Relievers

In the middle of the night a little more than a year ago, Michael P. Durham woke up in his Moreland home, popped a couple of night-time pain relievers and tried to go back to sleep.

A short time later, however, Durham “began experiencing abdominal pain, brownouts, blackouts and a general sense of lightheadedness.” Then he developed an ulcer that “produced pain and caused an enormous amount of blood loss” that eventually required transfusions to keep him alive.

It wasn’t the Equate brand Rapid Release PM Pills that made Durham sick; it was the cannister inserted in the bottle meant to keep the pills dry that Durham inadvertently swallowed along with the tablets in his mid-night state of mind.
At least that’s what Durham, a former computer technologies teacher at Lincoln County High School, alleges in a federal lawsuit against Walmart, the company that made the pills (LNK International) and the company that made the stay-dry cannister (Multisorb Technologies).

Walmart and Multisorb have denied fault in their responses to the lawsuit and asked that it be dismissed. LNK, which makes Equate brand medications sold at Walmart stores, has not yet responded.

The complaint initially was filed in Boyle Circuit Court by attorneys Anne Luck Williams of Danville and Christopher Lee Coffman of Liberty but was transferred to U.S. District Court in Lexington last month.

The complaint seeks an unspecified amount of compensatory damages from the three companies, maintaining they were negligent “when they designed, produced, distributed, marketed and sold the ‘Sorbicap’ desiccant cannisters which contained an unreasonable risk of causing substantial and lingering bodily harm to the general public.”

There was no warning about the presence of the Sorbicap on the bottle, the lawsuit contends.

“Defendants knew or should have known that members of the public often take sleeping medication at night,” which “increased their duty to either make the Sorbicap more visible, differentiate the Sorbicap by texture or use another desiccant such as those contained in a pouch,” the complaint states.

Among the defenses both Walmart and Multisorb put forth in their responses to the complaint is the notion that Durham was responsible for his own actions and should have exercised more care when taking the pills. It was his own negligence that brought on the medical issues he seeks damages for, the companies contend.

According to the lawsuit, Durham purchased the pills at the Walmart in Stanford and took them in the middle of the night in early September 2010. He quickly became sick and later sought medical attention, which revealed “an ulcer had formed in close proximity to the final resting place of the Sorbicap that was lodged in his intestines.”

He is suing to recover his medical costs, including surgery to have the cannister removed, and to compensate him for his “severe physical, mental and emotional pain and suffering,” the lawsuit states.