UC Told to Pay Malpractice Award

SANTA ANA — In what is believed to be the largest medical malpractice award against UC Irvine Medical Center, a judge has ordered UC regents to pay $18.6 million to a Garden Grove woman who was left severely brain damaged after an operation on her hand.

Orange County Superior Court Judge C. Robert Jameson ordered the payments to Denise DeSoto after finding that the university system had frustrated the court’s efforts to find out how the 38-year-old woman slipped into a coma after a operation at UC Irvine’s hospital.

In April, the judge took the unusual step of barring the university from defending against the woman’s lawsuit and continuing to trial. Jameson found that the university’s attorneys withheld key evidence and concealed the existence of a crucial witness.

“Considering what [the university] did to her, this award is fair and just,” said Irvine lawyer Cornelius P. Bahan, who represented DeSoto.

UC Irvine officials said Thursday that they will ask the judge for a jury trial and, if that request is denied, they will appeal his decision.

John Lundberg, UC’s deputy general counsel in Oakland, acknowledged that there were unfortunate delays in handing over evidence, but said they were not meant to mislead the court.

“It has that appearance, but there was no intentional effort to hide anything,” Lundberg said. “That’s the last thing we would engage in. We want to treat people who bring lawsuits openly and fairly while at the same time defending the university.”

The award deals another financial blow to the regents, who are still dealing with lawsuits filed by women and couples whose eggs or embryos were allegedly misappropriated by three former UC Irvine doctors.

Thus far, the university system has paid about $14 million to settle roughly half of the 102 lawsuits filed by patients of the now-defunct UC Irvine fertility clinic, according to attorneys for the women.

DeSoto, a legal secretary, was involved in an accident Dec. 6, 1993, that caused her minivan to roll. She was rushed to the UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange, where surgeons amputated two fingers and reattached two others.

A week later, complications developed. She lost circulation in the reattached fingers and underwent surgery a second time.

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 that it was clogged with mucous, blocking the passage of air and causing her to suffer a cardiac arrest, according to court documents.

DeSoto, a mother of two, has been in a coma ever since, hospitalized at Meridian Neuro Care in Santa Ana.

Marshall Silberberg, an Irvine attorney representing the regents, said DeSoto’s injury was “unfortunate and unavoidable,” adding that it was caused by a “mucous plug” that developed in her breathing tube.

But in court documents, Bahan asserted that the university concealed evidence and the existence of witnesses with firsthand knowledge, including the presence of an anesthesiologist who was the first physician to assist DeSoto.

Bahan said it took more than three years, and numerous trips to court before the regents’ attorneys admitted the existence of the anesthesiologist, who had five months experience as a resident.

Bahan accused the regents of plotting a cover-up, pointing to a sworn declaration by Dr. J. A. Makena Marangu, one of the physicians who treated and was subsequently sued by DeSoto.

In her declaration, Marangu said the university’s attorney told her “repeatedly that if I didn’t cooperate and go along with the defense story that DeSoto’s injuries were a freak, unavoidable accident, I would face huge personal liability from an adverse judgment and costs of defense.”

In April, Jameson found that the regents had grossly obstructed justice in the case, saying the defendants “have stonewalled this thing from the get-go.”

In a decision issued earlier this week, the judge said he decided to bar university officials from presenting a defense in the case because their conduct was “intentional, despicable and unprofessional.”

The judge’s $18.6 million award includes $1.5 million for DeSoto’s past medical bills.