CHICAGO (Legal Newsline) – A Chicago man is suing food and drug retailers for selling him a drug that was not therapeutically equivalent to the one prescribed by a physician.
Alex Turetsky, as parent and guardian of minor J.T., individually and for J.T. and all others similarly situated, filed a class action lawsuit Nov. 20 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division against American Drug Stores, American Stores Co., New Albertson's, and Albertson's, all doing business as Osco Drug, alleging violations of state consumer fraud statutes, breach of implied warranties and unjust enrichment.
On April 24, the suit states, after Turetsky's son, J.T., received a prescription for Concerta, which is approved for treatment of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, Turetsky presented the prescription to defendants' Osco Drug Store No. 3487 at 2491 Howard St. in Evanston, Illinois.
Turetsky expected to receive either brand-name Concerta or a therapeutically-equivalent generic product. Instead, the defendants' pharmacy dispensed to Turetsky a version of Concerta manufactured by Mallinckrodt and which the Food and Drug Administration expressly found not to be therapeutically equivalent to Concerta, as its effectiveness wears of much more quickly, the complaint states.
As a result, Turetsky and others in the class suffered damages because they paid for a prescription that was supposed to be therapeutically equivalent to Concerta but was in fact not.
Turetsky and others in the class seek actual, statutory, punitive or treble damages, plus interests, injunctive relief, attorney fees, and costs of the suit.
They are represented by attorneys Elizabeth A. Fegan, Daniel J. Kurowski, and Steve W. Berman of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro in Chicago and Seattle; and by David Freydin and Timothy A. Scott of Freydin Law Offices in Skokie, Illinois.
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division case number 1:15-CV-10491