Woman Allowed to Seek Damages Against Physician

A Moorpark woman may seek damages against a Thousand Oaks doctor she says hurt her during vaginal exams to scare her into a Caesarean-section delivery so he could go on a Florida vacation, a judge has ruled.

Ventura County Court Commissioner John Pattie has allowed Amber Onstot, 37, to amend her malpractice lawsuit against Dr. Edward M. Feldman to include a complaint of battery.

And if the obstetrician misdiagnosed the then-expectant mother for his own convenience and financial gain, a jury could award damages to punish the doctor, Pattie ruled.

Pattie found last month that Onstot’s case was substantial enough to allow her to expand her claim.

In response, Feldman’s attorney, Hugh R. Burns of Los Angeles, said that the doctor did nothing wrong and that Pattie’s Municipal Court decision is being appealed to the Superior Court.

In court filings, the lawyer also maintains that Onstot was not at all injured by Feldman. Feldman, the onetime chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Los Robles Regional Medical Center, has denied any wrongdoing.

“Not only was my medical care and treatment within the standard of care, but all other allegations made against me in the complaint are false,” Feldman said in a sworn statement. “At no point in time did I put any personal interests ahead of that of the patient.”

But Onstot and her husband, attorney Stephen Onstot, said they will settle the case for nothing more than Feldman’s acknowledgment of wrongdoing and a written apology.

“I can’t imagine a greater feeling of betrayal,” Amber Onstot, who delivered last fall, said in an interview. “Because with a pelvic exam, he’s examining you in ways most moral people don’t allow. It’s a very intimate relationship and there’s a lot of trust.”

But during those examinations, Amber Onstot said Feldman purposely hurt her to build his case for a Caesarean delivery.

“He would push down on my tailbone where it curves into the body, and inflict a very severe pain,” she said. “I would yell, ‘Oh, that hurts!’ Each time, he expressed his concern was becoming greater and greater that we would have to go C-section.”

Early in her pregnancy, Onstot said she met with several obstetricians to find just the right one. When Feldman promised to deliver the baby vaginally himself, she signed up. And as months passed, she became even more convinced she had made the right decision.

“I liked him, that’s the thing,” she said. “This guy became someone I would have invited over to my house for dinner. I got to know him and his wife and his children. He was a real human, not just this doctor person. Then I found out this was a bait-and-switch.”

Instead of setting aside Oct. 23, 1997, to deliver the Onstots’ baby as promised, Feldman booked a vacation in Florida, the couple alleges. To make sure he did not lose payment for the Onstot delivery, they said the doctor didn’t tell them of his change in plans.

They allege that he, instead, concocted a ruse to persuade the couple a C-section was necessary and that it should be done on Oct. 17, the day before he went on vacation.

“The icing on the cake for him,” Amber Onstot said, was that Feldman would get $1,900 for the C-section operation rather than $1,400 for a vaginal delivery.

The couple discovered the deception, they said, 10 days before their son, Skylar, was due for delivery. While sitting in Feldman’s Janss Road waiting room, they said they overheard another patient say that the doctor would be on vacation the following week.

“I realized he wasn’t going to be there to deliver my baby, so I went out and paced the hall sobbing,” Amber Onstot said. “I finally came back in and my husband and I agreed to let Dr. Feldman come clean. But he didn’t.”

Even before that appointment, the Onstots said they suspected Feldman was misleading them for reasons they could not fathom.

Amber Onstot had told the doctor in July that she had had a tailbone injury years before and that she was having discomfort after sitting for a long time, she said.

Then, for the next two months, Feldman said that she would probably need a C-section because her tailbone was misaligned and would snap off during a vaginal delivery. To prove his point, Feldman pressed on the tailbone during five consecutive pelvic exams, Amber Onstot said.

Finally, on Oct. 3, the Onstots sought the opinion of a second obstetrician, Dr. George Tuttle III of Thousand Oaks. The doctor found no evidence of a tailbone abnormality that would interfere with childbirth, the lawsuit says.

Then during the couple’s final appointment with Feldman on Oct. 13, the doctor reported that Amber Onstot had an elevated blood pressure. His nurse also found the expectant mother’s blood pressure was high. Feldman recommended a C-section no later than that Friday, the day before his vacation, the couple said.

The Onstots immediately switched Amber’s care to Tuttle. And the next day he measured her blood pressure at normal levels, according to Tuttle’s declaration in the case. A follow-up X-ray of Amber Onstot’s tailbone this year also revealed no abnormalities, Tuttle said.

In the end, Amber Onstot delivered by Caesarean section anyway, she said, because her baby wasn’t moving down the birth canal, and Tuttle thought a vaginal birth after a prolonged labor might endanger the infant.

In his court declaration, Feldman maintains that he never deceived the Onstots.

“During pregnancy, Ms. Onstot received appropriate medical care,” he wrote. “At each office visit, a thorough history and physical examination was performed, and any complaints made by Ms. Onstot were fully addressed.”

He lists eight special tests done during pregnancy to ensure that Onstot and her baby were healthy, including a urinalysis, three ultrasounds, a vaginal culture and a chromosome analysis.

When he found high blood pressure on Oct. 13, Feldman said he recommended bed rest until the next day, when he scheduled another test to assess the well-being of the fetus. But Amber Onstot never showed up, transferring instead to Tuttle. The baby was born in good health, he noted.

“The medical care I provided Ms. Onstot was, at all times, well within the standard of care,” Feldman wrote.

That is so, he maintained, because all appropriate tests were done, the patient was seen at proper intervals, an infection was treated with antibiotics, and when hypertension elevated Amber Onstot’s blood pressure, more tests were scheduled.

“My care of Ms. Onstot did not cause or contribute to [her] alleged injuries,” Feldman wrote.