You, too, can be sued

Most of you don't know that I was recently officially sued for a sum "in excess of ten thousand dollars". Sit back...this story will seem ridiculously unreal. Back in January I returned to work at Wal-mart after having been off for a couple of days. Laying to the side of the pharmacy was a certified big manila envelope that had been delivered to (and signed for)at the service desk. It was addressed to Amy Baker Bynum. I cannot tell you how much I dreaded opening this letter. You see, only the Board of Pharmacy knows me as Amy Baker Bynum at 1527 Garner Station Blvd. I knew this could not be good.

"We hereby serve upon you the enclosed summons, complaint..." My heart raced as I tried to quickly read what this was all about. (I must take a moment to say that it is very stressful to work in a job where you know that any mistake can harm someone and/or put your a** on the line in every way. I simply can't afford to "have a bad day". If I don't sleep well one night, if I feel sick one day, if I am worried about something away from work, if I'm simply too busy...I can make a really serious mistake. And even if no one is hurt as a result, I could still lose my license, job, and even more financially. I know this everyday I walk into that pharmacy.)So, back to the law suit...

This is the gist of it all: Seems some guy got the wrong medicine in Gastonia !! NC in December of 2006 !!. From what I'm told, they had a man pharmacist that worked at that store some, at the time, with the FIRST name of Bynum (how crazy is that?). Anyway, in the plaintiffs and his lawyers haste to sue..they somehow did ALOT of research (joking) and named ME as the plaintiff in this case.

Okay, so I'm really upset by the time I make it through all this legal mumbo-jumbo of a "civil summons" I've received in the mail. Rationally, I know this is an obvious mistake, easy to fix right? WRONG. I am soon in a whirl of phone calls to Wal-mart's home office, mine and their district managers, talking with the service desk to see who signed for the letter, talking to my Wal-mart appointed lawyer. This would also lead to numerous copies of letter/documents, mailings to my lawyer certified mail, signing stuff in front of notaries and etc. Not to mention the true intense stress this has caused me. I am convinced that all this legalese talk is purposefully that way so that even an educated person won't really realize if they are about to go to prison. I was at the mercy of my Wal-mart lawyer to "trust" that everything was proceeding as it should to get me off the case.

Well, FOUR MONTHS LATER I have received the letter saying I am "dismissed with prejudice". I understand "dismissed" but why can't it just stop there? What is the extra legal wording here? My lawyer told me early on that I would be dismissed but that, unfortunately, that is all the court will show. There won't and never will be any legal, formal way to say I am dismissed because I should have never been named in this case anyway! So now I will always show a court case once filed against me in the Gaston County court system. It will show I was dismissed but no mention of how completely innocent I was.

While I love America, our system is obviously flawed. We have a loss of innocence here. This case shows that you can simply be minding your own business, working everyday as a productive citizen and still get caught up in something so ridiculous. I have invested my time and some money to get my name cleared. If Wal-mart hadn't been a part of the suit, I would have been paying a lawyer myself. Y'all know me and can probably imagine the stress this has caused me. It is upsetting when it takes 4 months and lots of effort to settle a case that originated in a store I have never even placed my foot inside. Just writing about it now makes me irate!!!

Sorry so long in writing. Just wanted to share this and hope nothing like this ever happens to anyone else...but I know it will.