Verdicts

Med-Mal Suit Reaps No Divorce-Related Damages

The plaintiff, Kristin Kahkonen Dupree, first sought treatment for depression and stress from licensed family physician James E. Giugliano in 2000. Dr. Guigliano's medical specialty is osteopathic medicine. He prescribed anti-depressants, along with exercise, to improve Dupree's mood, and referred her to a counselor. (At some point, Dr. Guigliano changed the plaintiff's prescription because she complained that the first medication he prescribed had lowered her libido.) A year and a half later after the plaintiff first sought help for her depression, she and the doctor entered into a sexual affair that began at a gym, where Dr. Guigliano was showing Dupree some exercises to alleviate her stress and anxiety. They continued the relationship for nine months, breaking it off by mutual agreement. However, when Dupree confessed the affair to her husband, he sued her for divorce. The divorce was contentious, taking five years to settle.

Dupree sued Dr. Guigliano for medical malpractice, seeking damages not only for physical and emotional harm, but also to cover the costs of her divorce proceedings ($155,000) and for the loss of her husband's financial support ($435,600). The jury found each party partially at fault and awarded Dupree damages of $154,000 for past mental distress, $50,000 for future mental distress, $134,000 for past loss of income and $166,000 in punitive damages, but nothing for the losses incurred in connection with the divorce.

The parties cross-appealed, the doctor claiming that his relationship with the plaintiff was not related to his treatment of her as his patient, so that a medical malpractice claim should not lie. The plaintiff claimed that she should not have been found partially at fault because she had shown she was overwhelmed by the “transference” phenomenon (the well-documented situation in which a patient, in a vulnerable position, projects feelings of love onto the doctor who is helping her). She also asserted that her divorce-related damages and should have been awarded because she had proven them.

On appeal, New York's highest court affirmed most of the awards, concluding that the jury could properly have found that the doctor was treating the plaintiff in his professional medical capacity, particularly as he had prescribed medication to her and changed that prescription when she complained of side-effects; that he had a duty to properly manage her transference of emotions once that problem surfaced; and that he had a professional duty (which he breached) not to harm her. “The standard for medical malpractice [in New York] is that 'the challenged conduct constitute[] medical treatment or bear[] a substantial relationship” to the physician's treatment of the patient (1B NY PJI 3d ed, ' 2:150, at 47-48,” stated the court. “Here, where defendant was prescribing a course of treatment for plaintiff's mental health problems, including medication and counseling, a jury might reasonably conclude that the sexual relationship was substantially related to and, in fact, interfered with the treatment so as to constitute medical malpractice. That defendant mismanaged plaintiff's medical condition does not, however, negate comparative fault. The affair continued for nine months, during which time both plaintiff and defendant clearly sought out repeated sexual encounters. The jury might, as it obviously did, reasonably discount the expert's testimony that plaintiff was wholly without volition in the matter.” The court also declared, without discussion, that the plaintiff's claims for divorce-related costs and losses were “without merit.”

Med-Mal Suit Reaps No Divorce-Related Damages

The plaintiff, Kristin Kahkonen Dupree, first sought treatment for depression and stress from licensed family physician James E. Giugliano in 2000. Dr. Guigliano's medical specialty is osteopathic medicine. He prescribed anti-depressants, along with exercise, to improve Dupree's mood, and referred her to a counselor. (At some point, Dr. Guigliano changed the plaintiff's prescription because she complained that the first medication he prescribed had lowered her libido.) A year and a half later after the plaintiff first sought help for her depression, she and the doctor entered into a sexual affair that began at a gym, where Dr. Guigliano was showing Dupree some exercises to alleviate her stress and anxiety. They continued the relationship for nine months, breaking it off by mutual agreement. However, when Dupree confessed the affair to her husband, he sued her for divorce. The divorce was contentious, taking five years to settle.

Dupree sued Dr. Guigliano for medical malpractice, seeking damages not only for physical and emotional harm, but also to cover the costs of her divorce proceedings ($155,000) and for the loss of her husband's financial support ($435,600). The jury found each party partially at fault and awarded Dupree damages of $154,000 for past mental distress, $50,000 for future mental distress, $134,000 for past loss of income and $166,000 in punitive damages, but nothing for the losses incurred in connection with the divorce.

The parties cross-appealed, the doctor claiming that his relationship with the plaintiff was not related to his treatment of her as his patient, so that a medical malpractice claim should not lie. The plaintiff claimed that she should not have been found partially at fault because she had shown she was overwhelmed by the “transference” phenomenon (the well-documented situation in which a patient, in a vulnerable position, projects feelings of love onto the doctor who is helping her). She also asserted that her divorce-related damages and should have been awarded because she had proven them.

On appeal, New York's highest court affirmed most of the awards, concluding that the jury could properly have found that the doctor was treating the plaintiff in his professional medical capacity, particularly as he had prescribed medication to her and changed that prescription when she complained of side-effects; that he had a duty to properly manage her transference of emotions once that problem surfaced; and that he had a professional duty (which he breached) not to harm her. “The standard for medical malpractice [in New York] is that 'the challenged conduct constitute[] medical treatment or bear[] a substantial relationship” to the physician's treatment of the patient (1B NY PJI 3d ed, ' 2:150, at 47-48,” stated the court. “Here, where defendant was prescribing a course of treatment for plaintiff's mental health problems, including medication and counseling, a jury might reasonably conclude that the sexual relationship was substantially related to and, in fact, interfered with the treatment so as to constitute medical malpractice. That defendant mismanaged plaintiff's medical condition does not, however, negate comparative fault. The affair continued for nine months, during which time both plaintiff and defendant clearly sought out repeated sexual encounters. The jury might, as it obviously did, reasonably discount the expert's testimony that plaintiff was wholly without volition in the matter.” The court also declared, without discussion, that the plaintiff's claims for divorce-related costs and losses were “without merit.”