LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A lawsuit blamed a man's suicide on a St. Matthews pain clinic, and a jury agreed.
On Sept. 18, 2017, Brent Slone texted this message to his wife: "they denied script im done love you". Thirty minutes later, he killed himself. According to the lawsuit filed against Commonwealth Pain and Spine in Jefferson Circuit Court, Slone's suicide could have been prevented.
Pictured: a quotation from a text mentioned in a lawsuit filed against Commonwealth Pain and Spine in St. Matthews, Ky., by the family of a man who took his own life after he was denied pain medication.
The jury's verdict awards Slone's family $6,925,000, including $3,000,000 specifically for his daughter. The lawsuit, filed in 2018, said Slone was involved in a car crash in 2011 that left him paralyzed and other severe injuries. Slone became a regular patient of Commonwealth Pain and Spine for pain management from Jan. 2014 until his death, the lawsuit states.
After a surgery in California in 2017, Slone entered an inpatient recovery center in San Diego, where he was prescribed oxycodone and oxycontin.
While returning to Louisville in August, Slone went to the emergency room at Baptist Health for a dislocated hip and ulcer. He was prescribed a small amount of pain medication, as he had run out of the prescription from the San Diego clinic, and was advised to follow up with Commonwealth Pain and Spine. According to the suit, after he was discharged, he called Commonwealth Pain and Spine and requested a "bridge prescription."
The suit claims that Commonwealth Pain and Spine cut Slone's prescription by 55% from what he was receiving from the San Diego clinic. The suit says that notes from the clinic indicated that Dr. Stephen Young said he "needed to see the records from this facility in California." Later that day, the suit says Slone faxed the documentation to Commonwealth Pain and Spine.
However, Young still refused to fill the prescription, because, according to call log notes, the documentation was from July, and there had been no communication since that time. Slone was advised that he would need to wait for six days for his appointment.
Slone killed himself a few hours later.
From Sept. 10 to 12, Slone visited Baptist Hospital Louisville and Norton Brownsboro four times in seek of relief, the lawsuit states. Slone and his wife, Sonya Slone, contacted Commonwealth Pain and Spine a combined 12 times during a 36-hour period prior to his suicide to request pain medication.
In a social media post, attorney Hans Poppe said the verdict is to "punish and deter them and others from similar conduct in the future."
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