Jury verdict on defamation charges against CVS overturned
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A federal appeals court reversed a $1.025 million jury verdict against CVS Pharmacy Inc., whose employees were accused of defaming a physician with statements including that he was about to be arrested.
Dr. Anthony Mimms, a physician who started his own pain management practice, Indianapolis-based Mimms Functional Rehabilitation, filed suit against Woonsocket, Rhode Island-based CVS, alleging pharmacy employees made defamatory statements when refusing to fill his prescriptions, according to Wednesday’s ruling by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago in Anthony Mimms v. CVS Pharmacy Inc.
A jury in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis found CVS liable for $1.025 million on four of the alleged defamatory statements. They were: “CVS doesn’t fill Dr. Mimms’ prescriptions or prescriptions of any other pill mills”; “Dr. Mimms went to jail”; “Dr. Mimms has been ... or will be arrested”; and “Dr. Mimms is under (Drug Enforcement Administration) investigation.”
A three-judge appeals court panel unanimously overturned the verdict on the first three statements. “Dr. Mimms needed to demonstrate that CVS employees knew in fact that their statements were false or had serious doubts as to the veracity of their statements.
“As a matter of law, he could not do so by imputing corporate knowledge to the speakers, and he provided no other knowledge at trial that would allow a reasonable jury to find that the speakers knew their statements were false,” said the ruling.
The panel held CVS was entitled to a new trial on the fourth statement, on the DEA. The District Court “should have allowed CVS to present evidence” that the statement was true, “that Mimms was in fact the subject of a DEA investigation,” said the ruling.
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