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Missouri Court of Appeals Rules Venue Proper Only in County Where Decedent First Ingested Opioid Pain Medication and Not Where Drug Prescribed

In State ex rel. Mylan Bertek Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Vincent, the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, held that, in a case alleging wrongful death, medical malpractice, and pharmaceutical liability, venue was proper only in the county where the decedent first ingested opioid pain medication, rather than the county where a defendant prescribed it.  

Decedent’s widow filed suit in St. Louis County, alleging that defendants’ negligence caused her husband to become addicted to opioid pain medication, leading to unbearable withdrawal symptoms that caused him to commit suicide. The defendants were the physician who prescribed the medication for a back injury and several pharmaceutical companies that manufactured it.  The plaintiff alleged the physician defendant first prescribed opioids at his medical office located in St. Louis County and continued to do so over a period of twelve years. Later, while travelling in Florida, the decedent ran out of medication and could not refill it. Plaintiff alleged the decedent suffered intense withdrawal symptoms and, as a result, shot himself in the chest and died. 

One of the pharmaceutical company defendants filed a motion to transfer venue asserting that venue was proper only in St. Charles County because that was the county where the decedent lived and first ingested the medication.  Plaintiff successfully opposed the motion, arguing that St. Louis County was the proper venue because that was where he was first exposed to the physician defendant’s negligent prescribing practices in his medical office. 

The appellate court analyzed § 508.010, RSMo, which sets venue in the county where the plaintiff was “first injured.” Section 508.010.14 provides that a plaintiff is “considered first injured where the trauma or exposure occurred rather than where the symptoms are first manifested.” 

The court explained the alleged bodily injury to the decedent – opioid addiction, resulting pain and suffering, and ultimately death – could only have occurred when he ingested the medication. In other words, no bodily injury could have occurred at the time of prescribing, and it was not until the decedent ingested the medication that he exposed his body to the ill-effects of the drug. Under that analysis, venue was proper only in St. Charles County (where decedent first ingested the drug) and not in St. Louis County (where the physician prescribed the drug).  

Accordingly, the appellate court reversed the trial court’s order, issued a writ of prohibition directing the St. Louis County judge not to proceed with the case, and remanded with instructions to transfer to St. Charles County. The court’s analysis demonstrates that: (1) under Missouri venue law, the key inquiry is the location where the injury occurred, rather than where the allegedly negligent conduct occurred; and, (2) the alleged injury and alleged negligence do not necessarily occur in the same location. 

The opinion does not reference Section 538.232, which states that, in any action against a health care provider, “the plaintiff shall be considered injured by the health care provider only in the county where the plaintiff first received treatment by a defendant for a medical condition at issue in the case.”  It is unclear what effect that section, if discussed, would have had on the court’s analysis.