Admitted Drug Dealer Sues Doctor Who Prescribed Painkillers for Medical Malpractice
side note: This is an extreme example of a topic that I’ve done plenty of writing about. As the nation’s abuse of prescription painkillers continues to grow, it is more than likely to result in a growing number of physicians who prescribe those painkillers being sued for malpractice or arrested for law breaking. In the case chronicled below, admitted drug dealer Lionel “Beans” Sease helped get Dr. Michael Dobish, who prescribed the drugs Beans was selling, arrested and convicted for illegally prescribing narcotics as well as sued for Medicaid fraud. Now, Beans is suing Dr. Dobish for medical malpractice. This is an extreme example, but should serve as a warning to physicians loose with their prescription pad.
Oct. 9, 2011, 4:42 p.m. EDT
York Daily Record
York, PA –
A York man who pleaded guilty to illegally selling prescription drugs is suing the doctor who prescribed the painkillers to him for medical malpractice and medical negligence.
Lionel “Beans” Sease is serving a six-to-16-year sentence for possession with the intent to deliver drugs and cocaine delivery.
Sease led authorities to Dr. Michael Dobish in January 2010 after Sease was investigated for obtaining large amounts of prescription painkillers from area pharmacies.
Dobish, of Spring Garden Township, pleaded guilty in August 2010 to illegally dispensing drugs and Medicaid fraud. He was sentenced to three to six years in prison and ordered to serve 27 months before becoming eligible for probation.
He also was ordered to pay $73,787 in restitution to Medicaid and lost his medical license for 10 years.
The doctor denied making a financial profit from the prescriptions he wrote for Sease, one of his patients.
Sease now is suing Dobish and his former medical practice, Dallastown Medical Associates, alleging that Dobish’s “malpractice” resulted in his becoming “highly addicted and or dependent” on Vicoden, Percocet and Oxycontin.
He said the addiction made him “dysfunctional and engage in bizarre, uncivil and harmful behavior.”
Sease, who is seeking $35 million in punitive damages and $8 million in compensatory damages, claims the drugs caused “irreparable loss” to his “mental stability and emotional well-being.”
