Walgreen’s: At the Corner of Mean and Vindictive (Not Happy and Healthy)

Walgreen’s fired a pharmacist, Sami Mitri, after Mitri challenged his store’s questionable billing practices.

As reported by Reuters Legal, in 2010 Mitri accused Walgreens of firing him for complaining that some pharmacists in nearby Walgreens stores were partially filling prescriptions, giving the customer an "IOU" for the remainder, and billing Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers for the full amount. That could have resulted in fraud if the customer did not return for the balance.

Walgreens admitted the “IOUs” were a throwback to an earlier computer system. It said internal efforts to stop the practice were underway before and after Mitri complained.

By the way, no evidence showed that Walgreen's that defrauded the government-- but Mitri had a good-faith concern that fraud was occurring.

The jury found that Walgreen’s fired Mitri in retaliation for whistleblowing, and awarded him economic and punitive damages.

The current legal issue is the amount of punitive damages. Mitri won compensatory damages of $88,000. The jury awarded punitive damages of 13 times that amount—a bit over $ 1 million.

Walgreen's says that's unconstitutional (too high in relation to actual damages) under U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

The case is Mitri v. Walgreen Co. The Ninth Circuit federal appeals court has scheduled the matter for arguments. Photo credit: Trademarkia.com