Ruling that health care providers, while important, “are not entitled to an elevated status in tort law that would categorically immunize them from liability when their negligent prescriptions cause physician injury to nonpatients,” the Utah Supreme Court overruled a lower court’s decision for the defendants in the case of David Ragsdale, who shot his estranged wife to death after being prescribed a mix of psychotropic drugs and steroids by a nurse practitioner. “Prescribing medication is not an exact science, especially when it comes to mental health,” said a lawyer for the defendants, “physicians have to play the odds.”
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