Part of the Mississippi GAP Act in that which requires that upon any request for a conservatorship, the party subject to the conservatorship must undergo a minimum of two medical examinations, performed by neutral and independent doctors, (expert witness) whose findings will be sent to the court and to the parties in the form of an examination report. Dr. Perkins examination report of Robert Sullivant Sr., dated January 27, 2023, is available here for reference.
Dr. Perkins not only violated the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure, but he also violated the Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure Administrative Code in multiple areas. Dr. Perkins’ actions should not be taken lightly, as they are a matter of great public concern. Dr. Perkins lied under oath to perform a favor for an attorney that paid him to do so. Dr. Perkins sold a diagnosis to an attorney and then perjured himself to protect this scheme. He then retained another attorney to attempt to extort money from me and to quash a lawfully issued subpoena seeking a deposition related to his report. All of this was to facilitate the elder abuse of my father taking place in the Chancery Court.
I emailed Dr. Perkins cordially seeking a time and date where he could be deposed regarding the IME. Dr. Perkins refused to respond to this email. I called his office multiple times and was rejected each time. Finally, I was left with no choice but to issue a subpoena to Dr. Perkins in order to compel his deposition.
Upon receiving this lawfully issued subpoena from the Chancery Court Clerk, Dr. Perkins retained attorney J. Hale Freeland, who promptly began to send threatening, harassing, and intimidating emails. Mr. Freeland than filed a Motion to Quash, which included a demand for no less than $4,000 in order to take the deposition of Dr. Perkins. According to Mississippi Law, it is the court sets the fees and payment schedule for all court appointed expert witnesses, not the witnesses themselves. Dr. Perkins must also make himself available for deposition and produce all reports related to his examinations, which he refused to do. Dr. Perkins than claimed that his neutral medical examination constituted “attorney/client work product”, and that he was immune from being deposed in this case. This not only conflicts his supposed neutral and independent status, but also violates Mississippi Rule 35(b)(3). It further constitutes fraud and fraudulent misrepresentation to the court, and to me, about Dr. Perkins’ “independent” status.
On May 9, 2023, a hearing was held related to several motions in this case. One said motion, came from opposing counsel on behalf of my father and this was a request to draft a new Will. My father’s cognitive ability to draft a Will is questionable at best, and non-existent if being reasonably analyzed by the facts. To this question, the court needed evidence from an expert that my father possessed the “testamentary capacity” to draft a Will. Although Dr. Perkins never examined him for such capacity, and no mention of such capacity is in his report, Dr. Perkins was happy to oblige, take the witness stand, and perjure himself on behalf and at the direction of, opposing counsel, who paid for his testimony.
A reading of the transcripts attached leaves no doubt that Dr. Perkins committed perjury, lied about the mental and neurological condition of my father, was dishonest about his “testamentary capacity”, and never actually examined my father for such or reported anything related to such capacity. The transcripts show the following exchange:
MR. ALFORD: So, in that evaluation of Mr. Sullivant in January, did you make those determinations or evaluations on testamentary capacity then?
DR. PERKINS: I did.
MR. ALFORD: And what was your opinion about his testamentary capacity?
DR. PERKINS: That at that time he did — he did retain the capacity to form testament.
A look at the “Perkins Report”, proves that this is not true, and that Dr. Perkins was lying in his testimony. Dr. Perkins continues to testify about this fabricated testamentary capacity, and then proceeds to offer his unwarranted and unfounded opinion that this I should not be the conservator of his father, all based on his own lies. The court proceeded to grant Mr. Alford’s motion to execute a will, which was brought because my father allegedly wants to change his Will to leave all of his assets to a church that he last attended 80 years ago…yes, 80 years ago. Dr. Perkins thinks this is not questionable whatsoever. Nor does Mr. Alford, Judge Whitwell, or any one of the other “legal minds” and “judicial officers” involved in this case.
Dr. Perkins’ multiple ethical violations and overt disregard for the rules of Mississippi Law have severely damaged myself and my elderly father, who has severe dementia and has been the victim of scammers and undue influence for years. As if the greed from such scammers was not enough, now the greed of an attorney and a doctor must be contended with, all while the court (at best), looks the other way and at worst, is facilitating it. I believe strongly that it is the latter.
The rules governing medical expert activities by physicians are pursuant to Mississippi Code, which can be found [HERE]. The Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure “finds it necessary to fulfill its statutory responsibilities by adopting these rules in order to protect the public, to set professional standards, to enforce the provisions of law regarding the performance of medical expert activities by physicians, and to further other legitimate government purposes in the public interest.” The rules are available [HERE].
Rule 8.2 dictates that these rules apply to “to any physician who performs medical expert activities regarding any person, facility, or entity located within the state of Mississippi, or regarding an event alleged to have occurred within the state of Mississippi”; and Rule 8.3 dictates that Dr. Perkins’ role in the Chancery Court as an independent medical examiner qualifies as “medical expert activities”.
Rule 8.5 dictates the professional standards for physicians performing medical expert activities, as outlined by subsections A-E. Dr. Perkins has violated each of these provisions when he testified falsely to the Chancery Court, refused communications with this author, demanded $4,000 upfront in order to be deposed, with such request having no basis in the law.
This Board explained in crafting Miss. Code Ann. §73-43-11(1), that “there is a problem in Mississippi with the lack of regulation of medical expert activities by physicians. This lack of regulation causes the performance of medical expert activities to be vulnerable to fraud, abuse, dishonesty, deception, incompetence, and other forms of unprofessional, dishonorable, and unethical conduct by physician experts, all of which are harmful to the public”, and that “[a]ny violation of Part 2635, Rule 8.5 as enumerated above shall constitute unprofessional conduct in violation of Mississippi Code, Section 73-25-29(8).”
It appears that the behavior of Dr. Perkins is precisely what The Board feared when it drafted these rules. Dr. Perkins has engaged in deception, dishonestly, incompetence, and he has also engaged in a form of extortion and fraud, all motivated by pure greed, by retaining counsel to bullying me into paying him an unauthorized $4,000 fee to take his deposition, despite my entitlement to take it under the law. Dr. Perkins misdiagnosed my elderly and mentally incapacitated father as having the “testamentary capacity” to revamp his entire Will, despite never examining him for this capacity, and then he lied to the court on behalf of one attorney, whose control he was under as part of a “payment for favorable testimony” exchange.
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