Evidence checklist
Medication and pharmacy injury evidence checklist
Drug and device claims depend on product identity, timing, medical causation, warnings, and the legal theory available for that product. The exact manufacturer, brand or generic status, lot number, dose, pharmacy record, and prescribing history can change the analysis.
Do not stop or change a prescribed medication based on this checklist. Discuss urgent symptoms and treatment decisions with a qualified clinician.
Published August 23, 2026 · Last reviewed August 23, 2026
Product identity
The product must be identified precisely. Brand and generic drugs, different manufacturers, lots, strengths, delivery systems, and device models can carry different warnings and legal issues.
- Label and container: Drug name, NDC, manufacturer, lot, expiration, strength, directions, fill date, prescription number, and pharmacy.
- Physical product: Remaining pills, packaging, inserts, blister packs, implant card, explanted device, components, and photographs.
- Purchase and dispensing record: Receipt, pharmacy profile, refill history, e-prescription, prescriber order, substitutions, and counseling notes.
Use and symptom timeline
A contemporaneous timeline helps clinicians and experts evaluate alternative causes, dose relationships, and whether the medical event followed exposure in a biologically plausible way.
- Exposure dates: Start, stop, refill, dose changes, missed doses, device implantation or removal, and relevant lot dates.
- Symptoms and diagnoses: First symptoms, progression, tests, hospitalization, diagnosis, treatment, and what providers recorded about possible cause.
- Other exposures: Other prescriptions, over-the-counter drugs, supplements, illnesses, procedures, and relevant prior conditions.
Warnings and communications
Prescribing, dispensing, and manufacturer records can show what information was available and what was communicated. Save the version received at the time rather than relying only on a current online label.
- Medication guide and warnings: Printed insert, pharmacy handout, informed-consent document, device manual, and labeling that accompanied the product.
- Provider communications: Portal messages, calls, refill questions, reported symptoms, advice given, and requests to stop or change treatment.
- Recall or safety notice: FDA notice, manufacturer communication, pharmacy letter, date received, affected lot, and response instructions.
Medical and financial records
Complete records are needed to evaluate causation and damages. A temporal association alone does not prove that a product caused the condition.
- Baseline records: Why the product was prescribed or used, pre-exposure health, prior tests, and relevant risk factors.
- After-injury care: Emergency records, specialist opinions, pathology, imaging, laboratory results, surgery, rehabilitation, and future-care recommendations.
- Loss records: Medical expenses, income loss, paid leave, caregiving, travel, replacement products, and insurance communications.
A safe preservation rule
Preserve; do not investigate at personal risk. Keep original files and objects, record where they came from, and avoid editing, repairing, washing, testing, returning, or posting them publicly. Do not record private conversations or enter property unless the law and the circumstances permit it.
This checklist is general information. An attorney can identify evidence held by other people, send a targeted preservation demand, and apply the law of the state where the event occurred.
Use the checklist with these guides
How this litigation works
You keep your own case. That's the difference from a class action.
Read thisBrand versus generic
An unsatisfying rule that decides a lot of cases. Here's what survives it.
Read thisProving causation
Two separate proofs, both contested hard. This is where cases fail.
Read thisDeadlines
When the clock starts is genuinely unclear here — which cuts both ways.
Read thisDo not wait for records to disappear
A free review can identify the evidence controlled by a business, employer, platform, provider, or manufacturer and whether a preservation request is warranted.
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