MINNEAPOLIS — The family of the late rock star Prince is suing a doctor who prescribed pain pills for him, saying the doctor failed to treat him for opiate addiction and therefore bears responsibility for his death two years ago, their attorney announced Friday.
Prince performs at the Billboard Music Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas in this May 19, 2013, file photo.
Prince Rogers Nelson died of an accidental overdose of fentanyl on April 15, 2016. Authorities say Dr. Michael Schulenberg admitted prescribing a different opioid, oxycodone, to Prince in the days before he died, under his bodyguard’s name to protect the musician’s privacy. Schulenberg has disputed that, although he paid $30,000 to settle a federal civil violation alleging that the drug was prescribed illegally.
The lawsuit filed in Hennepin County District Court alleges that Schulenberg and others 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.”
According to the complaint, which was first reported by ABC News.com , Prince’s family seeks unspecified damages in excess of $50,000.
An attorney for Prince’s six surviving siblings said Friday that the new lawsuit will eventually replace a lawsuit they filed in April in Illinois to beat a legal deadline.
A week before he died, Prince lost consciousness on a flight home from playing a concert in Atlanta.
The plane made an emergency stop in Moline, Illinois, where he was revived at Trinity Medical Center with a drug that reverses opioid overdoses.
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