It’s a dog’s life. Just ask Mark Braun, who worked for Wal-Mart in California as a pharmacist, until he was fired for refusing to fill a diet pill prescription. Braun told his supervisors he didn’t feel he could legally fill the prescription because it did not have a patient name for the medicine. According to Braun, his supervisor at Wal-Mart told him to go home. Two days later, Braun filed a complaint with the California Board of Pharmacy, saying that Wal-Mart engaged in “unlawful practices in dispensing prescription drugs”. According to Braun’s complaint, Wal-Mart fired him a few days later. Braun has filed a suit asking for $600,000 in punitive damages, and $500,000 in compensation. He says he was fired for his refusal to fill the diet pill prescription, which — it turns out — was for a dog!
Is this concrete evidence that Wal-Mart is going to the dogs? Did Wal-Mart put the bite on Braun for not signing off on drugs for a dog? Maybe Wal-Mart thinks it is running a veterinary operation? This is one tail that could cost Wal-Mart $1.1 million. That might be enough to get the company to sit up and pay attention to how it dispenses its drugs. Braun should argue that to err is human, but to get fired is canine.
