SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) – A Kaiser doctor changed medical records to protect herself from litigation, according to a suit filed in Sacramento County Superior Court.

Isaac Ali sued Kaiser Foundation Hospital, the Kaiser Permanente Group, Jenna Torres, and Kaiser Legal Group for statutory and common law invasion of privacy, disclosure of private information, defamation, conspiracy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

This action is related to an underlying malpractice suit against defendants Torres and Kaiser regarding an April 2016 visit Ali had with his doctor at the time, Torres, and his swollen foot. The case was arbitrated, and Ali “made it very clear that he held Dr. Torres responsible for him being in the hospital for a week and unable to fully work for over six months,” and that she was no longer his physician, according to the current complaint.

Ali says that during the discovery process he became convinced that alterations had been made to his medical record to protect defendants from litigation “over his near death septicemia caused by the substandard treatment of Doctor Torres,” the suit states.

In March 2018, during the time Ali was suing Torres and Kaiser, Ali says Torres, who was not his doctor at the time, illegally accessed his medical record and changed it to reflect that Ali was “a depressed drug abuser in need of psychiatric treatment,” the action alleges. According to Ali, she went so far as to then issue orders for his psychiatric evaluation. 

Kaiser’s psychiatric department called him to set up the evaluation, and in response to Ali’s questions, he learned that Torres had accused him of abusing an antidepressant and that Kaiser was requiring an evaluation. Ali says he was not taking the specified drug and that he was not clinically depressed. 

Ali says he has reason to believe that Kaiser’s legal counsel “broached this invasion of privacy with Torres and they colluded and conspired to invade plaintiff’s privacy,” the complaint charges.

The false entries into his record were made during his legal battle with Torres and Kaiser, “and Kaiser experts relied on that record in opining in her defense,” the action alleges.

The false entries still remain in his record, Ali claims. “Defendants, and each of them, continue to defame, intimidate, harass and attack plaintiff. The idea that the legal team and all Kaiser personnel see this record causes plaintiff great mental anguish and distress,” the suit states.

Ali says his wife was “mortified when she saw the referral for psychiatric treatment,” and with the news of her husband’s purported drug abuse, “she was damaged forever,” the complaint claims.

Ali seeks general non-economic damages, special economic damages, punitive damages, interest and legal costs.          

The plaintiff is represented by Richard A. Lewis of the Law Offices of Richard A. Lewis in Sacramento, California.