If you own the piece of paper, and you’re giving it to him in partial exchange for the medicine, then he’s obligated to give it back to you.
If you don’t own the paper… then as a matter of general law, I don’t see how he’s obligated to return it. Obviously there may be specific laws covering this situation I don’t know; I’m speaking from a generic standpoint.
He’s doing more than refusing to serve the customer, he’s preventing anybody else from serving the customer too, until the customer is able to get more paperwork.
Depending on what time of day or even the day it’s that could cost the customer at lease a day of waiting. If it’s the emergency contraception pill, that waiting period can be disasterous.
Which is why alerting the media becomes the thing to do. You really don’t have many legal options, and the bad publicity will be much more effective in dealing with the twit behind the counter.
I found the rules for the State of California. It’s a 200-something page document, but I think the relevant section is below. My reading indicates that if the drug isn’t in stock, the pharmacist should obtain it, transfer the prescription to a pharmacy that does stock it or return the prescription. If the pharmacist declines to fill the prescription on moral, ethical or religious grounds, the employer is responsible for ensuring that the patient can still get the drug in a timely manner (which is an issue with the morning after pill).
I’m not sure I follow. If you don’t own the paper, then who does own it at that point? What right of ownership does the pharmacist have? It wasn’t his before you entered the pharmacy. I can’t be his because you gave it to him. Assuming it was never yours in the first place, you can’t transfer ownership to him.
Of course it seems silly to treat this situation as a property matter. Laws like the one Dewey Finn pointed out are much better. The question is how many police officers are going to be aware of the law in order to be of any help?
I’m certainly no expert in this area, but the section you quote seems directly on point to me. If it is…
Then the pharmacist, in order to be acting as the licensing code requires, must first notified his employer, in writing, of his objection to dispensing contraceptive drugs, AND the employer must have been able to provide a reasonable accommodation of the objection, specifically ensuring that the patient has timely access to the prescribed drug. I don’t know what “undue hardship” is – I suspect if the pharmacist worked for himself, for example, in a small store that had no other pharmacists available, he’d be able to claim undue hardship and simply not fill the prescriptions. But if we’re talking about a guy with a crisis of conscience who works for a chian, then, while he personally can refuse to fill the order, the store must have set up an alternate way for the order to be filled.
Note that violation of these rules is sanctioned by disciplinary or administrative action by the licensing agency – we’re still not talking criminal action here.
Perhaps you are merely acting as the doctor’s agent – the doc owns it until you give it to the pharmacist. You never own it. In the same way that, say, the mailman doesn’t own the mail you give him to deliver. Once it’s delivered by him, the recipient owns it.
I really don’t know – I’m guessing based on the rule announced by WhyNot.
Hmm, I’ve found where I found it, but it may or may not be useful.
Here’s the post.
And this is the link “I cited earlier” in that thread: Registered Pharmacist Licensing Act Problem is, the link doesn’t go anywhere anymore, and the legislation’s been rewritten since then*, so I’m not even 100% sure I can stand by my certainty until I check.
Here’s the current Illinois DPR information page. Here the sections of the current Illinois Pharmacy Act.
I will begin to wade through them and see if I can find the information I read before. But please understand it might take me a while. I hope my Doper credibility doesn’t suffer for this.
I’m not sure if this counts as a cite, but I called my dad, a pharmacist practicing in Illinois for 30some years, and he said I’m right, but that *new *legislation is going to make it so that a pharmacist has to give your scrip back if you ask for it. Hmmm, I didn’t think “my dad” would cut it as a source in GQ. 
But here’s the proposed ammendment he was talking about, including changes to the Pharmacy Act and a requirement that every pharmacy that carries contraceptives must post the following sign:
Here’s the notice of the Proposal of the Amendment.
So, it may be that while the piece of paper wasn’t “owned” by the customer in the past, the lawmakers have seen a new need and changed the legislation accordingly. In other words, I may have been giving outdated or soon-to-be outdated information.
Is RU486 covered by this? It’s not really a contraceptive.
If you have your cell phone, dial information and ask (and not in your indoor voice) for the number of your state’s medical insurance fraud office. Make it clear to the thief that, in your opinion, his “pro life” speech is a diversion intended to cover his intent to file a bogus insurance claim.
[QUOTE=Bricker]
We seem to agree that the pharmacist is not committing insurance fraud – he’s simply not filling the perscription; no insurance is at issue here./QUOTE]
I don’t necessarily agree to any such thing. Covering such an insurance fraud under a cloak of “pro-life conviction” is so perfect a crime that I think it just became my default assumption for such cases.