Doctor jailed for prescribing habits faces drug-dealing suit

Some experts worry that the case could set a bad precedent, but the lawyer who filed the civil lawsuit calls it a unique situation.

By Tanya Albert, AMNews staff. Aug. 18, 2003.

An Indiana doctor who pleaded guilty to seven felony counts of selling, distributing or dispensing a controlled substance could become the first physician to be held liable under the state's Drug Dealer Liability Act.

Indiana is one of 13 states that have a law aimed at repaying drug users and their families for everything from treatment and rehabilitation to emotional distress and disfigurement.

The laws, which states started adopting in the 1990s, traditionally have been used to go after people society thinks of as street dealers. For example, the wife of a man killed in a car crash with a driver under the influence of drugs sued the dealer who supplied the drugs and won $268 million. In another case, the city of Detroit won $7 million for costs it incurred treating drug-addicted inmates.

But now more than a dozen people are suing former Indianapolis family physician Randolph W. Lievertz, MD, in an effort to recover both economic and pain and suffering damages that they say they or deceased loved ones suffered because of OxyContin prescriptions the physician wrote.

Dr. Lievertz is serving a 51-month prison sentence after pleading guilty earlier this year to charges that he prescribed OxyContin to one woman in amounts that were not medically or reasonably necessary, according to the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Indiana. In a 14-day period in November 2001, Dr. Lievertz prescribed 860 80 mg OxyContin tablets to the woman, Melinda Hawkins, according to the U.S. attorney. Hawkins pleaded guilty to unlawful trafficking and health care fraud and is also serving a prison sentence.