Therapist Must Pay Patient

A jury awarded a West Hills woman $225,000 Tuesday for emotional anguish that it determined was inflicted by her former psychiatrist.

In a civil case argued before Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Robert M. Letteau, Karen Bomyea, 32, said the psychiatrist, Irving Berent, hugged and fondled her during therapy sessions between July, 1982, and June, 1983.

Berent, who was on the staff at Woodview-Calabasas Hospital at the time, denied the allegations. Citing Bomyea’s extensive psychiatric history, he contended that she either manufactured the incidents or fantasized that they occurred.

Bomyea, a radiology technician at UCLA Medical Center, sued her former doctor for battery and psychiatric malpractice. Her attorneys requested $500,000 in damages for pain and suffering and an unspecified amount of punitive damages.

The four-man, eight-woman jury awarded no punitive damages and did not find Berent professionally negligent. They decided that Berent had committed battery, however, and awarded Bomyea $225,000 for her pain and suffering.

“I did not get into this for the money,” Bomyea said after the verdict was read. “I wanted to make sure he didn’t do this to anybody else, and that they don’t kill themselves, because I almost did.”

David Drexler, one of her attorneys, expressing disappointed that no punitive damages were awarded, said: “It’s the only way to really send a message to professionals who treat psychiatric patients that this kind of conduct will not be tolerated”

Berent, in private practice, now lives in the San Luis Obispo area and was not in court Tuesday when the verdict was read. His attorney, Mark B. Palmer, said Berent has practiced psychiatry for more than 30 years and is about 59 years old.

Bomyea first met Berent in 1981 when she was admitted to Woodview-Calabasas Hospital suffering from anorexia nervosa, court documents show. Berent continued to treat Bomyea as an outpatient after she was discharged from the hospital in 1982, the documents show.