answer:Assuming that there were no health consequences, I feel like the only damages might be whatever the cost of the prescription was. There may be professional consequences, but I don’t know about legal. I just see very few reasons to prescribe a placebo instead of just refusing additional treatment – I can only think of (1) an attempt to placate the patient so that they won’t pursue potentially harmful treatment through another doctor or by themselves, or (2) simply not wanting to lose the patient, and knowing that it won’t do any harm. In all honesty, highly specialized professionals really sometimes have to pretend or manipulate in order to ensure that clients or patients won’t really “eff” things up.