UC Regents Accused of Obstruction

An Orange County Superior Court judge Tuesday accused the University of California Regents of grossly obstructing justice in a malpractice suit filed by the family of a 34-year-old woman left in coma after hand surgery at UCI Medical Center.

Judge C. Robert Jameson ruled in favor of Denise DeSoto after finding that the regents had withheld key evidence and hidden the existence of a crucial witness in an effort to stonewall attorneys for DeSoto.

DeSoto, the mother of two young boys, remains in a coma three years and four months after a blocked breathing tube caused her to go into cardiac arrest after surgery.

Cornelius Bahan, DeSoto’s attorney, said the family will ask for $15 million to $20 million in damages. The judge will determine how much to award the family after hearing arguments from Bahan, he said.

“We are being absolutely stonewalled by the regents through their attorneys,” Bahan said. “Their conduct has been just outrageous, and yet their ability to keep us from finding out what happened has been effective.”

Regents attorney Mark Maizel called the sanction “too severe” and said the regents intend to appeal the ruling.

“We turned over all documents relative to her medical care and treatment and never hid or failed to disclose any witness,” he said.

But Bahan argued, and Jameson agreed Tuesday, that the regents had willfully misled the plaintiff’s attorneys from the beginning, including omitting from medical records the existence of a first-year anesthesiologist who was key in DeSoto’s treatment.

Bahan, in court documents filed Tuesday, said what transpired in the suit “constitutes a virtual handbook on how to wage an effective total assault . . . on the rights of both the plaintiffs and co-defendants.”

DeSoto was on her way home from work as a legal secretary on Dec. 6, 1993, when she rolled her car. She was taken to UCI Medical Center in Orange, where surgeons amputated two fingers and reattached two others.

A week later, she lost circulation in the reattached fingers and went into surgery a second time to correct the problem.

After 30 minutes in the recovery room, DeSoto turned blue from a lack of oxygen, Bahan said. When doctors removed her breathing tube, they found mucus clogging it, blocking her air passage and causing her to go into cardiac arrest, he said.

“She has been in a coma ever since that moment,” Bahan said. “It has been our struggle and our effort during all this time to find out who was there, when were they there, what kind of problems did she have, and what did they do?”

In court documents, Bahan claims that the defense hid evidence and witnesses, including the anesthesiologist who was the first physician to come to DeSoto’s aid and who, Bahan said, helped destroy the breathing tube.

Bahan said it took more than three years, and numerous trips to court, for the regents’ attorneys to admit the existence of the anesthesiologist, who had just five months’ experience as a resident. After a private investigator hired by Bahan found the doctor, according to court papers, the regents’ attorney advised the doctor to evade the subpoena.

Maizel, the regents’ attorney, denied hiding witnesses and said Bahan had spoken with the majority of people involved with DeSoto’s care.

“In fact, Mr. Bahan took the deposition of the witness that was allegedly hidden,” Maizel said. “We provided Mr. Bahan with the last known address of the individual to assist him in locating the individual.”

Bahan said Jameson’s attempts to sanction the University of California for misconduct failed. Two months ago, the judge fined UC $5,000 for misconduct in the case. Last summer, a discovery referee appointed by the court found that there was willful obstruction of justice by the regents’ attorneys.

“A $5,000 sanction in a $15-million lawsuit isn’t anything,” Bahan said. “It grew worse, so that was the last straw.”

Bahan said DeSoto remains on intermittent ventilation at Meridian Neuro Care in Santa Ana, where she was moved after two months at UCI. She is somewhat aware but unable to talk, move her limbs or communicate with her husband and sons, Bahan said.

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DeSoto has been threatened with eviction from Meridian if $568,000 in medical bills, which UC agreed to pay, is not made soon, Bahan said.

Maizel said he was not aware that any such payment agreement existed.

Maizel’s firm, Baker, Silberberg & Keener in Irvine, also is defending four UCI doctors involved in the case. The trial is scheduled for Sept. 8. Both sides say they plan to go forward with those cases.

Tuesday’s action means the case against the university will not go to trial. Bahan now simply must make his case for damages, which the judge ultimately will determine.

However, Kevin E. Monson, defense attorney for one of the plastic surgeons, said Jameson’s default judgment might dissuade the family from additionally suing the individual doctors.

“I think that it will put pressure on the plaintiff to solely look to UC regents, rather than individual doctors,” Monson said. “Why would he fight it out when he has a default against the deep pockets?”

Tuesday’s ruling could lead to another enormous payout by the University of California for problems at UCI Medical Center, which has been embroiled in lawsuits regarding its now-defunct fertility clinic. UC has paid out millions in settlements to whistle-blowers and alleged victims of egg stealing at the clinic.