EMPLOYEE’S MISTAKE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 845, 13 December 1929, Page 10

EMPLOYEE’S MISTAKE

DRUGGISTS FINED £5

Said by Mr. Glaister to be a mis- ; take that had occurred only once in- - times, the error of an employee | who accidentally placed liquid strych- i nine in a bottle labelled liquid tolu ] was responsible for Sliarland and Co., ; Ltd., wholesale druggists, being fined , £ 5 and costs at the Magistrate’s Court this morning. < Mr. Glaiser, for defendant company, I entered a plea of guilty to a charge ' of selling strychnine with a misleading label. fe According to Mr. Hubble, prosecuting, the charge was brought under Section 12 of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act. It was possible that the Act had never been intended for such a case as that before the court, but the offence lay in selling goods with a misleading package. The maximum fine for the first offence was £SO, and for any subsequent breach, £2OO. There was no suggestion that the offence had been committed deliber- 1 ately. 1 “A certain chemist of this City .1 bought from Sliarland and Company, Limited, a jar labelled liquid tolu, "a | harmless drug used in prescriptions i for the cure of pneumonia,” continued Mr. Hubble. “He supplied prescriptions containing the drug to eight people. It was later discovered that the jar had contained liquid strychnine. Fortunately all the people supplied, with the exception of one, were adults, and beyond some discomfort, were not injured. The other was a child between two and three years old. The child did not die but was seriously injured.” Mr. Hubble added that he understood the defendants had had to meet a civil claim as a result of the mistake. There was an analyst’s fee of £l2 12s to be paid. Mr. Glaister referred to the system of checking in use by the firm. Mr. Glaister referred to the system of checking in use by the firm. It was not possible so long after the alleged mistake to prove that it was not made in defendant’s warehouse, but if it had been made there, this was the only complaint that had been received by the firm. Investigators had been able to ,trace the sale of drugs by Sharlands for many years back, and that was almost unique for any wholesale firm. The manager of the department in which the mistake had apparently occurred, had been seven years with the firm. He packed 25,000 parcels of drugs in a year and had not hitherto made a mistake. There was, however, the possibility of error and a mistake might have occurred. Defendants had certainly made all possible amends. Mr. Glaister urged that the strychnine which had caused the trouble was only one in a hundred strength and was used quite frequently in prescriptions. The child affected was very young and had been ill at the time. Remarking that the firm had had to meet considerable expense already, Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., imposed a fine of £5. There were in addition, analyst’s fee £l2 10s court costs 16s, solicitor’s fee £3 3s. “I shouldn’t think that employee would get a Christmas present,” commented the magistrate.