A Temple Hills woman is suing a CVS pharmacist and CVS for $40 million, claiming she was given an incorrect dosage of Percocet, triggering an outbreak of Steven Johnson Syndrome (SJS), caused by allergic reactions to prescription medicine, that has left her scarred and cost her a lucrative recording contract.

Charles County Circuit Court Judge Jerome R. Spencer is overseeing the civil jury trial, which began Tuesday, Aug. 19 and is expected to last between six and eight days.

The case is bringing to light the dispensation of prescription medications and what can happen should a pharmacist allegedly make a mistake.

When Spencer asked the potential jurors who filled Courtroom D if any of them had received incorrect prescriptions in their history, five of the potential jurors raised their hands. Of the five, three claimed they or someone in their family had received improper medications from CVS in the past.

Spencer instructed the jurors to make their decision based on the evidence presented. “Don’t look at me to see whether I’m frowning or not,” he said. “You may see me sitting over here with a sour look on my face. I could be thinking about baseball. My Cardinals have lost three in a row. What I think does not matter.”


In his opening arguments, William Gary, attorney for plaintiff Kemia Giddens, painted a sad picture for the jurors of a young woman who was a singer, songwriter, director, actress and mother of a 13-year-old. Negligence wiped out her career,” he said.


Gary said Giddens was a backup singer for Mariah Carey and Beyonce, among others, and had just signed a recording contract that was going to pay her $17,500 a week.

“This is a major case,” he told the jury. “Steven Johnson Syndrome is a devastating disease. It’s nothing to play with. It attacks every organ in your body.”

Claiming his client lost $6 million in salary, he said the defendant, CVS, has admitted liability.

“Every single day of your life with SJS is a day of pain,” Gary said. “In February of 2009, my client was in an automobile accident in Fort Washington and suffered neck, shoulder and back pain. She was prescribed 5 milligrams of Percocet. The pharmacist went to give her Percocet but they gave her 10 milligrams instead of five—double the dosage she was prescribed. CVS records show, say five milligrams. The label on the bottle said five, but the dosage was 10. She went on vacation not knowing what had happened. She never got a phone call from CVS telling her the dosage was wrong.”

Gary said Giddens went to Disney World and after riding on some of the rides with her son, her back began hurting so she took the Percocet. The next day she was broken out in blisters all over her lips, throat and wrists, she had a swollen tongue and the vagina was swollen.

“It causes you to break out in blisters from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet,” he said. “This is a bad disease. It takes you out.”

Gary apologized as he showed the jurors graphic photographs of lesions and sores covering Giddens’ extremities.

“You have to see the magnitude of what we’re dealing with here.” He said. “It’s not pretty.”

Jan Simonsen, attorney for CVS and pharmacist Robin Lynn Brotherton, told the jury there are two sides to every story.

She said that Giddens had not one, but three car accidents since 2009 and that the condition she was suffering from was Erythema multiforme, a hypersensitive reaction to a virus or in some cases medication.

Simonsen said that the dermatologist Gary would call as an expert witness, Dr. Kenneth Carson, was “a hired expert by the plaintiff. “He lives in California,” she asserted. “He never treated the patient. He never even saw her.


“You have the most important job in this room,” she told the jurors. “You have to decide the truth.”

The trial will resume Wednesday, Aug. 20.

Contact Joseph Norris at joe.norris@thebaynet.com