O'Mara v. California State Board of Pharmacy

HERNDON, J.

Petitioner appeals from a judgment denying his petition for a writ of mandate. He sought the writ to compel respondent California State Board of Pharmacy to set aside its order imposing a penalty of 15 days suspension of his pharmacist license and 5 days suspension of his drug store license.

On May 26, 1964, the board filed an administrative accusation (Gov. Code, § 11503) charging that appellant was subject to discipline pursuant to Business and Professions Code section 4357 in that on three specified occasions he had refilled prescriptions for dangerous drugs without authorization of the prescribing doctor in violation of Business and Professions Code section 4229. Following a full hearing thereon the hearing officer’s proposed decision (Gov. Code, § 11517, subd. (b)) was adopted by the board and the penalties above specified were imposed.

The evidence discloses that two doctors wrote prescriptions for dexedrine, seconal and dexamyl, dangerous drugs within the meaning of Business and Professions Code section 4211, at the request of investigators of the Division of Investigation of the Department of Professional and Vocational Standards.

[10]

The prescriptions were written in the name of a fictitious person and care was taken to insure that no refills were or would be authorized by the doctors, their nurses or associates. Appellant refilled each of these prescriptions knowing that no authorization therefor existed and in one instance after actually having telephoned the prescribing doctor’s office and been told that no refill should be made. No purpose would be served by reciting the evidence in detail. It fully and completely supports each and every finding made by the hearing officer and the court below.

The following language set forth in appellant’s brief both as purported “Points and Authorities’’

(sic,

assignments of error) and as “Statement of the Case’’ is typical of his approach in this appeal: “Based on a trumped up charge of refilling three prescriptions worth a grand total of $5.75, the Board of Pharmacy has, in effect, pronounced a death sentence on Appellant’s business . . .’’ Such colorful allegations lend no assistance to this court nor to appellant himself in reviewing the proceedings presented for our review. Insofar as such assertions might be deemed an attack upon the sufficiency of the evidence to support the findings made by the court below in the exercise of its independent judgment on the evidence (Code Civ. Proc., §1094.5, subd. (b)) or the findings of the hearing officer adopted by the respondent board, it is not well taken. Regardless of what standard of required proof was adopted, no result other than a determination that the accusations made against respondent are true could possibly be reached by any impartial judicial body.