Steven Jensen suffered from severe chronic pain and took oxycodone for many years to manage his condition. After Jensen went to his doctor seeking help for an unrelated ailment, his doctor prescribed an additional drug, clonazepam. When taken together, oxycodone and clonazepam can pose serious health risks. The FDA mandates a black box warning—its strongest advisory—due to the severity of the risk when these drugs are prescribed together.
When Jensen went to a Walgreens pharmacy to fill his new clonazepam prescription, a warning flashed on the pharmacist’s computer. But the pharmacist manually overrode the warning and sold Jensen the prescription. The next day, Jensen passed away from oxycodone and clonazepam toxicity.
Jensen’s family and estate sued Walgreens, alleging that the pharmacist was negligent in various ways, including failing to warn Jensen of the risk of taking the two drugs together. Walgreens moved for summary judgment in the district court, arguing that the pharmacist had no duty to warn Jensen because of a doctrine called the “learned intermediary rule.” In the negligence context, this rule creates an exception to a pharmacist’s general duty of care to patients. Under the learned intermediary exception, when a pharmacist fills a prescription for an FDA-approved drug, the pharmacist has no duty to warn a patient of the drug’s general risks because it is assumed that the physician who prescribed the drug—the “learned intermediary”—is best positioned to warn the patient, given their relationship. The district court ruled that disputes of material fact prevented it from granting summary judgment to Walgreens on the basis of the learned intermediary rule. Walgreens filed an interlocutory appeal.
Learned Intermediary Rule
Under this rule, a manufacturer of prescription drugs discharges its duty to warn by informing the medical profession of the product’s risks, rather than informing the patient directly. The rationale of the rule is that the physician is best positioned to evaluate the risks and benefits of the drug in light of the unique needs and susceptibilities of each patient. Thus, the physician, after having received complete and appropriate warnings from the drug manufacturer, acts as a learned intermediary between the drug manufacturer and the patient when preparing the drug prescription.
The Supreme Court of the State of Utah stated in its October 2, 2025 Opinion: “The question before us is whether the learned intermediary rule applies here. We conclude that it does not. The rule excuses pharmacists from warning of the general risks associated with FDA-approved medications. But this case is different in that it involves a known risk that was specific to Jensen. Given Jensen’s ongoing use of oxycodone, taking clonazepam posed a heightened risk to him, specifically. In these circumstances, we conclude that the learned intermediary rule does not create an exception to a pharmacist’s general duty to act as a reasonably prudent pharmacist would in the same situation.”
“We agree that the rationale for the learned intermediary rule does not extend to circumstances where a pharmacist has information about a patient-specific risk or observes an obvious error on the face of the prescription. Thus, while the learned intermediary rule exempts pharmacists from the duty to warn patients of the general risks of FDA-approved drugs, outside of that, it does not create an exception to the general rule that a pharmacist owes a duty of care to patients.”
“Here, the Plaintiffs have alleged that Walgreens’ pharmacist was aware of a patient-specific risk. The dangers of
combining clonazepam and oxycodone are well-documented in the case. And the Plaintiffs presented evidence that Walgreens had record of both Jensen’s existing oxycodone prescription and his new clonazepam prescription. Further, Walgreens’ system alerted the pharmacist to the potential drug interaction by displaying a warning on the computer, which the pharmacist had to manually override. Thus, the Plaintiffs provided evidence that the pharmacist was aware that the prescription posed serious risks that were specific to Jensen. The learned intermediary rule does not apply in these circumstances.”
Source Jensen v. Walgreen Co., 2025 UT 41.
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