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Cooper v. Chevron Corp.3/5/2003
claimant had not filled out a release for his medical records as previously requested. Manning also noted that claimant had recently been to the ER for back pain and wrote:
Phone call from this patient today (9/10/98) requesting refills of his Lorcet. He did not want any anti-inflammatory agents, only pain pills. He says he signed a medical records release when he was here, but we have no record of that. We still do not have his medical records and he has not made an appointment w/ Dr. Robert Martin in Wassila about his back. I fax'd in a prescription for him for Ultram. He called back stating that he did not want Ultram he wanted hydrocodone. (Id., emphasis added.)
The day after Manning's refusal to prescribe additional narcotic medication, claimant went to see Dr. James Yates, who he testified is a "good friend." According to Dr. Yates' note, claimant "was working around house back pain got worse." (Ex. 38 at 2.) Claimant informed Dr. Yates he had been to the ER but there is no indication he told the doctor about his treatment by Manning.
Claimant convinced Dr. Yates to continue to prescribe significant narcotics for him. The prescriptions in late 1998 were as follows:
October 13, 1998 40 Hydrocodone
October 21, 1998 20 Hydrocodone
November 3, 1998 30 Vicodan (Hydrocodone)
November 19, 1998 50 Vicodan (Hydrocodone)
December 15, 1998 30 Anexsia (Hydrocodone) (Ex. 38 at 3-4.)
This was just the beginning of numerous prescriptions for narcotics from several doctors.
Dr. Davis Peterson, an orthopedic surgeon, became involved in claimant's care on December 8, 1998. (Ex. 18 at 1.) He recorded claimant's history of a prior back injury but noted that following the Montana surgeries, "He had done well until about 6 months ago when he noticed insidious onset of buttock, leg pain, posterior calf pain into the heel which has progressively worsened." (Id., emphasis added.) The onset noted by Dr. Peterson corresponds with claimant's seeking care in 1998. It is inconsistent with claimant's assertion that he had continual back pain since 1990, and is just another in a long line of medical entries which are inconsistent with the claimant's testimony.
Dr. Peterson found "no clear sciatica." (Id.) He ordered a "gadolinium MRI scan." (Id. at 2.) The MRI showed "no evidence of recurrent herniated nucleus pulposus or stenosis" and " o significant encroachment of the exiting nerve roots," although it did indicate evidence of scarring from the prior surgeries and "bilateral recess stenosis in conjunction with a broad-based dis bulge at L5-S1." (Id. at 4-5.) He recommended a caudal block and commented that "if he develop recurrent leg pain, particularly with radiculopathy, we may need to consider a recess unroofing along the course of the S1 nerve root." (Id. at 5, emphasis added.)
Claimant sought narcotics from Dr. Peterson. When he first saw Dr. Peterson, the doctor recorded, "So far he [claimant] has managed with ibuprofen 800 t.i.d. and taken Percodan 3 to 4 times per week for pain manage." (Ex. 18 at 1.) Claimant's statement to Dr. Peterson flies in the face of his recent narcotic use and his seeking of narcotics. Further, there is no record of prior prescriptions for Percodan, which is Oxycodone with aspirin rather than acetaminophen. When confronted with that fact at trial, claimant asserted that Percodan is essentially the same as Hydrocodone. His explanation was not convincing and the Court is left wondering where claimant was obtaining Percodan. I have read Dr. Peterson's records and he is very specific as to the brands of Oxycodone, thus I am unpersuad
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