Prince’s family filed a lawsuit against on Friday, against a doctor who they allege failed to address Prince’s opioid addiction by providing him with narcotics without a proper prescription, ABC News reported.
Prince died in 2016 from a fentanyl overdose.
The lawsuit was filed in Minnesota district court and alleges that Dr. Michael T. Schulenberg failed to properly treat Prince (full name: Prince Rogers Nelson) for his addiction in the days leading up to his death.
The official lawsuit documents read that Schulenberg “failed to properly evaluate, diagnose, treat and counsel Prince for his recognizable opioid addiction” and that he “further failed to take appropriate and reasonable steps to prevent the foreseeably fatal result of that addiction.”
Minnesota prosecutors announced in April that Prince’s death was “accidental” and that there were no criminal motives behind his passing.
“The evidence suggests Prince took counterfeit Vicodin containing fentanyl,” Carver County Attorney Mark Metz said in April, adding that evidence suggested Prince had no idea he was taking a counterfeit pill that could kill him. Metz also added that Prince had no official prescription for fentanyl or Vicodin. The counterfeit pill contained the synthetic opioid, fentanyl, which is 50 times more powerful than heroin, according to the Carver County Attorney’s office.
Shortly before this decision was announced, Schulenberg had reached a settlement in federal civil case, according to a report by the Associated Press in April, in which he was fined $30,000. It was alleged that Schulenberg wrote a prescription to Prince’s bodyguard intending for the drugs to go to Prince.
The official wrongful death complaint filed on Friday says, “All the defendants had an opportunity and duty during the weeks before Prince’s death to diagnose and treat Prince’s opioid addiction, and to prevent his death. They failed to do so.”
The complaint continued: “In providing professional health care services to Prince, defendant Schulenberg had a duty to provide the quality of care consistent with the standard of acceptable medical practice. He failed to do so. He failed to appropriately evaluate, diagnose, treat and counsel Prince for his recognizable opioid addiction, and further failed to take appropriate and reasonable steps to prevent the foreseeably fatal result of that addiction.”
“These departures from the standard of acceptable medical practice had a substantial part in bringing about Prince’s death,” the complaint reads.
North Memorial Health, the hospital who treated Prince, told ABC News on Friday that they “stand behind the care Mr. Nelson received.”
(Excerpt) Read more in: Newsweek