ORANGE : Woman, Son Win $100,000 Judgment

Maria Nin and her deaf, retarded son have won a $100,000 judgment plus $18,375 in court costs against UCI Medical Center and two employees for negligence and “emotional distress” suffered by the youth after he was hospitalized in 1985.

Superior Court Judge Richard O. Frazee has also ordered the three defendants to pay court costs in the Nins’ case.

In a Dec. 20 civil court verdict, jurors had found psychiatric technician Thomas Meano guilty of “outrageous” conduct by taking the then-16-year-old boy from his locked hospital ward, driving him to a mall and traumatizing him.

The jury also concluded that Meano, supervising psychiatrist Dr. John H. Massimino and the medical center were negligent in their care of the boy. However, by an 11-1 vote, jurors rejected the Nins’ claim that Meano had molested the youth.

Although the Nins lost a central argument in their case, Maria Nin this week called the verdict “a victory--just to know that (Meano) and UCI and the doctor, that they were negligent.”

Most of the defendants or their attorneys declined comment. But Massimino, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCI, called the verdict unfair.

Massimino said he had been attempting to create an innovative program for deaf patients by training nursing staff in sign language and creating a supportive environment to manage “very troubled” deaf patients.

Before the Nin youth was admitted, 10 deaf patients had been admitted to the program but “the unfortunate incident” with Meano torpedoed the new program, he said.

Massimino called the trial “an ordeal. . . . I not only did not do anything wrong, I did more than anyone else” in trying to reverse discrimination against deaf patients and help the Nins’ son.

Meanwhile, state Deputy Atty. Gen. Susan Lanoue confirmed that she was investigating a separate complaint filed against Meano. She declined to say what the complaint involved. Meano now works as a psychiatric technician at Fairview Developmental Center, the state hospital for the developmentally disabled in Costa Mesa.

In their civil suit, the Nins claimed that around noon on March 6, 1985, Meano took their son without permission from UCI Medical Center’s locked psychiatric ward and did not return him to the hospital until 10:30 that night.

According to their attorney, Marvin Weiss, as soon as the youth arrived back at the hospital, he ran to his mother, using sign language to explain that he was scared and, pointing to his groin, saying that he “hurt, hurt.” Weiss argued that the incident had caused lasting emotional harm to the youth and his mother.

But defense lawyer John West said hospital doctors and other investigators found no evidence that the boy had been molested. West did say the youth appeared to have been “traumatized that day” but then noted “that the boy is traumatized every day because he is deaf.”

In their verdict, jurors awarded Maria Nin $50,000 in damages for emotional distress caused by negligence and awarded another $50,000 in damages for emotional distress to her son.