Smith v. Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc

Background

Susan Smith filed a proposed class action against Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc., Costco Wholesale Corporation, and others. She alleged that the companies used opioid-prescription policies that discriminated against people with disabilities. Her claims arose under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act.

Smith’s second amended complaint focused on two 2016 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for opioid prescriptions. One addressed doses above 50 or 90 morphine milligram equivalents per day, and the other addressed opioid prescriptions lasting more than three to seven days. Smith alleged that Walgreens and Costco used these guidelines to pressure pharmacists not to fill prescriptions exceeding those limits, or to fill them in smaller amounts.

Smith described several interactions with Walgreens and Costco pharmacists. She alleged that Walgreens pharmacists sometimes refused or delayed prescriptions, requested additional records, or referred her to other stores. She alleged that Costco pharmacists refused to fill prescriptions on several occasions, including once because she did not have a Costco membership card. She claimed that these practices caused travel expenses, stress, and uncertainty when obtaining opioid medication.

Legal Standard

The court evaluated the complaints under Rule 12(b)(6), which permits dismissal when a complaint does not state a legally recognized claim supported by enough facts to make liability plausible. At this stage, the court accepts factual allegations as true but does not accept unsupported conclusions or inferences that are merely possible.

Reasons for Dismissal

The court identified two independent problems. First, Smith did not plausibly allege that either company maintained the dose-and-duration policy she described. The complaint did not provide specific information about the policies, how they operated, or what dose or duration triggered them. The alleged pharmacy interactions could also have resulted from other explanations, such as due diligence before dispensing controlled substances, lack of inventory, refill timing, or a membership-card requirement.

The court found the allegations against Costco especially insufficient because they relied on three specific interactions that did not refer to a dose or duration policy. The allegations against Walgreens were more detailed, but the court found it implausible that Walgreens had a policy discouraging Smith from filling prescriptions while also regularly filling her prescriptions for nearly a decade. The court also found that the pharmacists’ conduct was more consistent with ordinary checks before dispensing controlled substances than with a nationwide policy of active discouragement.

Second, even assuming the policies existed, the court held that Smith had not adequately alleged discriminatory treatment. Smith argued that people receiving prescriptions above the guideline limits were more likely to be disabled. The court found that assertion conclusory and unsupported by specific facts. It also noted that many opioid prescriptions exceeded the duration limits, which did not establish that most patients receiving such prescriptions were disabled under federal law.

The court rejected Smith’s theories of intentional discrimination and deliberate indifference because the complaint provided only general statements rather than supporting facts. It rejected her meaningful-access theory because the alleged policies applied to everyone with prescriptions exceeding the limits, disabled or not, and therefore did not systematically exclude disabled people. It rejected her reasonable-accommodation theory because Smith did not show that disabled people were denied a similar experience to nondisabled people and because her proposed accommodation—filling valid opioid prescriptions exceeding the guideline limits as written—was too vague and did not account for pharmacists’ professional duties and potential liability.

Disposition

The court granted Walgreens’ and Costco’s motions to dismiss the second amended complaint without prejudice. The court granted Smith leave to amend because it was not certain that she could not allege facts supporting her claims. The court ordered that any amended complaint be filed within 30 days of the order.