The federal appeals court in Atlanta on Thursday ruled that a national pharmacy association cannot pursue damage claims against the Board of Regents in a copyright infringement case.
Atlanta lawyer Alan Lubel, who represents the regents, said the state is "very gratified" by the ruling. In 2008, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy filed a federal lawsuit against the regents, former University of Georgia pharmacy professor Flynn Warren Jr. and others, alleging Warren took questions from the board's national licensing exam and distributed them in his course materials for students who were about to take the test.
Claims in the federal suit against Warren are still pending, but the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals barred damage claims against the regents on sovereign immunity grounds. Separately, the national pharmacy association has filed a breach-0f-contract suit against the regents and Warren in Fulton County Superior Court, and that case is also still pending.
Warren, who retired from teaching, was a popular professor, with hundreds of students flocking to his pharmacy review classes to cram before taking their national licensing exam. When it filed suit, the national pharmacy association said the alleged breach forced it to temporarily stop administering the test nationwide.
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