Kaiser Is Found Liable in Retaliation Case

Kaiser's affiliated medical group placed Dr. Mark L. Woods on administrative leave and reduced his pay in 2003 after he complained about filthy treatment rooms, delays in care and a shortage of supplies, jurors said. On a 9-3 vote, they awarded Woods $200,000 for past economic losses.

The Bellflower hospital is the same one that in March was accused of dumping a patient on the streets of skid row after she was discharged from its care. A Los Angeles Police Department official said at the time that a taxicab had taken the woman, wearing a hospital gown and slippers, to the downtown Los Angeles area against her will. Kaiser apologized.

Friday's courtroom verdict was unusual, because Kaiser and its affiliated Permanente physicians group generally try to force lawsuits into binding arbitration, which is not open to the public. The judge in Woods' case, however, ruled that the arbitration agreement was "unconscionable" and unenforceable. The arbitration provision has since been changed.

The case publicly spotlighted the problems at the Bellflower hospital. In one e-mail from May 2003, Woods wrote that a patient found a urinal containing someone else's urine on a nightstand in his treatment room.

In other e-mails, Woods detailed bloody instruments left in the sink of a treatment room and a shortage of nitroglycerin, epinephrine, resuscitation bags and other supplies.

"This is a reoccurring dangerous trend and to date you have offered no permanent solution," Woods wrote in a January 2003 e-mail to a Kaiser director. "What is the next step?"

During the trial and in court papers, Kaiser and the Permanente medical group maintained that the discipline taken against Woods in late 2003 was appropriate, because he allegedly assaulted Dr. Steve Nguyen, then chief of the emergency service. Defense lawyers also said that Woods had been the subject of sexual harassment complaints and that his conduct had been deemed inappropriate.

"We respectfully disagree with the jury's verdict," Kaiser spokeswoman Socorro Serrano said in a statement. "We encourage our physicians and employees to advocate for improving patient care whenever and wherever possible, and we do not condone or engage in any retaliation against individuals for taking part in protected patient advocacy."