Just days after Carver County Attorney Mark Metz announced that no criminal charges would be filed in connection to Prince’s 2016 death, the singer’s family has filed a new lawsuit against the hospital that assisted in his first opioid overdose, questioning whether the facility did enough to prevent his fatal overdose.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
In the wrongful-death suit, which was filed by Prince’s six heirs on Friday and made public on Monday, the family members highlighted the roles of the doctor and pharmacist at Trinity Medical Center in Rock Island, Illinois on April 15, 2016. That is when Prince suffered from an overdose on a flight home from Atlanta. The singer’s plane made an emergency landing in Illinois for emergency medical attention. However, the legendary singer died just six days later from a second, fatal overdose in his Paisley Park estate in Chanhassen.
As a result, the family believes the hospital’s failure to diagnose the overdose correctly, treat it properly, investigate the cause or provide proper counseling were the “direct and proximate cause” of Prince’s death, Pitchfork reports. The suit also names the Pharmacy chain responsible for providing the medication for Prince under his friend’s name.
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While Prince believed he was taking prescription opioids such as Vicodin, he actually consumed black market pills that contained fentanyl. However, it remains unclear how Prince obtained the pills.
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“We have client interests to protect at the moment, including our theory of the case. What happened to Prince is happening to families across America,” the family’s attorney said in a statement. “Prince’s family wishes, through its investigation, to shed additional light on what happened to Prince.”
