Legal Question in Medical Malpractice in California

We recently changed my daughter's pediatrician; suffice it to say that we were not happy with the care and attention she received from her previous doctor. So we went through the usual process of gathering information on other local pediatricians, finding one in our insurance network, and so on. My daughter had her first physical today with her new pediatrician, and so yesterday her mother went to our old pediatrician's office to get a copy of our daughter's immunization record. Not only did they not have an up-to-date immunization record available, but they actually destroyed the original record we had given them from UCLA, where my daughter was born and seen up to the age of 14 months. What they did have was a barely legible, dark, and heavily blackened scan of the original record, but which, again, they had not updated with her most recent shots from 3 months ago. When we presented this mangled immunization record to our new pediatrician's office staff, it took a good 20 minutes of confused and squint-eyed reading of the record to figure out what was needed for the physical today, as well as the staff having to make several calls to our old pediatrician's office to try and figure everything out. On top of all of that, our old pediatrician hadn't even kept up his private notes, as he had incorrectly noted that my daughter had received the H1N1 vaccine when she had not.

In general, we are "displeased" with our former pediatrician, but what is our real concern is the destruction, manipulation, and lack of attention to our daughter's medical records, especially her immunization records. Doing some quick browsing, it seems what they did could potentially be illegal. Thus, I'm asking for some sort of expert advice on this issue; is there any action that could be taken against our former pediatrician for destroying and otherwise mangling our daughter's medical records? If so, what exactly could be done, or what action could or should we take? Thank you for your time.

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