In Lawnwood Medical Center, Inc. v. Samuel H. Sadow, M.D. Case No. 4D08-1968 (Fla. 4th DCA March 24, 2010) the Fourth District certified the following question to the Florida Supreme Court as one of great public importance: Are punitive damages of $5,000,000 arbitrary or excessive under the Federal Constitution where the jury awarded no compensation beyond presumed nominal damages but found that defendant intentionally and maliciously harmed plaintiff by slander per se?

by E. Patrick Buntz
May 11, 2010
Previously published by The Benchmark on Second Quarter 2010

A surgeon with staff privileges sued a hospital for breach of contract, and later added a claim for slander per se, seeking compensatory damages for both claims, as well as punitive damages for the slander. He alleged that the hospital had breached its contract with its medical staff, the Medical Staff Bylaws, by invalidly giving another surgeon exclusive privileges for cardiovascular surgery. The exclusive grant barred him from such surgery even though he had been approved to perform such surgery by the hospital’s credentialing committee and medical staff leadership. Statements identified as slander during the litigation by senior executive officers of the hospital included that the doctor was not even qualified to perform surgery on a dog.

The jury found the hospital liable on the breach of contract claim and fixed his total damages at $2,817,000. These were reduced to $1,517,000 by the court because he could have mitigated his losses. In separate proceedings on the slander per se claim, the jury found Lawnwood liable for the slander; that Lawnwood specifically intended to harm him by its per se slanderous statements; that, in fact, it had actually injured him by the statements. The jury found, however, that he suffered no compensable damages from the slander but that he was entitled nevertheless to punitive damages of $5 million from the hospital.

In the appeal of the slander per se claim, Lawnwood presented no appellate issues regarding liability or entitlement to punitive damages. Instead it appealed only the amount of punitive damages, confining its argument to the contention that $5 million is excessive under the United States Constitution.

The Fourth District Court of Appeal analyzed the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408 (2003) [State Farm], and BMW of North America Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559 (1996) [BMW]. Lawnwood argued that BMW and State Farm both hold that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment categorically bars any punitive damages exceeding a stated ratio with compensatory damages, usually 3:1 or 4:1. Dr. Sadlow argued that Lawnwood was incorrect as to the scope of these holdings. He contended that State Farm and BMW actually disclaim applying the ratio to all punitive damages awards, and that both decisions explicitly hold that the ratio may not apply in cases involving intentional and malicious conduct. In electing to agree with Dr. Sadlow’s interpretation of the State Farm and BMW decisions, the Fourth District Court of Appeal also cited to TXO Production Corporation v. Alliance Resources Corporation, 509 U.S. 443 (1993) [TXO], where the U.S. Supreme Court held that punitive damages of $10 million imposed for intentionally malicious misconduct are not improper even though actual losses were less than $20,000.

The 4th District also noted that under Florida Statute Section 768.73, as applied to intentionally malicious harm, punitive damages are tied to unusually reprehensible misconduct, rather than some ratio relating to compensable losses. Per the 4th DCA, this provision allowing punitive damages without proportionality for intentional, malicious harm satisfies any BMW and State Farm concern for fair notice and Due Process.

In the 32 page opinion, the appellate court came down hard on the hospital for the intentionally malicious defamation and for the attack against the doctor’s personal reputation. The judges even quoted the Ninth Commandment: “Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” The appellate opinion noted that Lawnwood officials never offered to retract what was said about Dr. Sadow. The hospital’s attorneys called the words, “rhetorical hyperbole” and that the executive who made the remark was “Just kidding.”

The appellate court in Lawnwood Medical Center, Inc. v. Samuel H. Sadow, concluded that although no compensatory damages were awarded for the slander per se, the amount of punitive damages assessed conforms to applicable law and is neither excessive nor arbitrary so as to exceed federal Constitutional norms. Because the issues presented are of great public importance as to the imposition and assessment of punitive damages under Florida law for cases involving intentionally malicious, harmful defamation per se under TXO, BMW and State Farm, the Fourth District Court of Appeal certified the question to the Florida Supreme Court.

In December 2007, Merkuri Stanback entered the Park Community Federal Credit Union in Macon, Georgia brandishing a firearm. Stanback and his cohorts restrained employees and ransacked the teller area before making off with almost $200K. When Stanback was arrested, a prosecutor declared that “bank robbers should be put on notice that they will serve the full term of years imposed because there is no parole in the federal system.” Continue reading ‘Carrots, Sticks & Useful Idiots’

The word is chutzpa – and it’s hard to imagine a better way to describe UC Berkeley (UCB) Vice Provost Sheldon Zedeck’s assignment of Arthur Reingold to investigate misconduct allegations against Professor Peter Duesberg, PhD. The charges stem from Duesberg’s (et al) report that was published in 2009 by Medical Hypotheses. Citing 35 references that includes South Africa’s (SA) own mortality reports, Prof. Duesberg’s team concluded that: Continue reading ‘The Berkeley Inquisition Exposed’

It began in 2009 with Eneydi Torres. Accused of exposing several men to HIV, Florida prosecutors threatened Torres with decades in prison unless she accepted their plea deal. But when asked to prove the reliability of HIV testing, prosecutors abruptly reduced their offer of 15 years in state prison to five days of unsupervised probation. Continue reading ‘Criminal HIV Trials Worry Pharma Execs’

Her mother’s murder trial has been over for a couple of weeks now, but I’m still haunted by little Rebecca Riley.  Why did no one manage to rescue this 4-year-old child as her parents pumped her full of powerful psychotropic drugs, drugs that would kill her? And how could the doctor who blithely prescribed those drugs have escaped even the slightest penalty? Continue reading ‘What Killed Rebecca Riley’

It’s being called the largest research fraud in medical history. Dr. Scott Reuben, a former member of Pfizer’s speakers’ bureau, has agreed to plead guilty to faking dozens of research studies that were published in medical journals. Now being reported across the mainstream media is the fact that Dr. Reuben accepted a $75,000 grant from Pfizer to study Celebrex in 2005. Continue reading ‘Pharma Researcher Pleads Guilty for Faked Reports’

Dr. Ossi came to the hastily arranged gathering of health officials and academics expecting to talk to them about his company’s research into anti-viral drugs and flu vaccine. But the health experts clustered around a handful of tables were not interested in hearing about the science behind such products. They had much more pressing concerns. Continue reading ‘How Vaccines Became Big Business’

When outspoken AIDS activists Martin Delany, Hank Wilson, Ferd Eggan, Belynda Dunn, Joe Carroccio, George Sanderson and Howard Jacobs died, their cohorts hardly mentioned that they all succumbed to drug-caused liver cancers. But when outspoken HIV skeptic Christine Maggiore passed away in December 2008, Seth Kalichman, John Moore, Jeanne Bergman and other PharmaSluts falsely marketed her death as AIDS-related.

For nearly a year, they parroted the false claims on thousands of heterophobic blogs – most of which are directly or indirectly funded by the pharmaceutical industry. For example, a visit to The Body will cram your browser with drug advertising and gay activism.

For an industry that routinely spends billions settling criminal complaints and pushing deadly drugs to children and minorities, disinformation is a vital component of their marketing plans. Without this propaganda and the complicit media, Americans would know that infectious diseases (including HIV) are statistically irrelevant in the US, Europe, Australia and South Africa.

We would also know that millions of Americans are injured or killed each year by untested drugs, preventable medical errors, adverse drug reactions by the pharmaceutical industry’s ongoing criminal behavior and systemic incompetence.

If the Media regularly reported these facts, taxpayers would not waste billions of dollars on the CDC, NIH, research centers and universities that market unproven cures for mythical dangers like H1N1, HIV, HPV and CO2.

Despite the propaganda, Christine Maggiore – like her daughter and millions of other Americans – died from an adverse drug reaction:

Christine suffered fatal renal failure caused by antibiotics, antiviral, and calcium received during the 9 days prior to her death.

So it’s no surprise that, despite his considerable qualifications, the PharmaSluts have attacked Dr. Al-Bayati as unqualified, although few (if any) of his accusers have ever qualified in a real court to render evidence-based opinions. Not only does Dr. Al-Bayati routinely qualify as an expert in criminal matters throughout the US, but he routinely exposes flaws in medical evidence that would otherwise be used to convict innocent people.

As did Ms. Maggiore before her unexpected death, Dr. Al-Bayati represents a significant threat to the makers of HIV tests and drugs. When HIV is put on trial in criminal matters, prosecutors will require the PharmaSluts to prove that their tests are reliable and explain exactly when, where, how and who proved that HIV attacks cells and causes AIDS. Without this evidence, the expert will not qualify and the prosecution’s case will collapse.

Florida vs. Eneydi Torres

Although the PharmaSluts routinely cite the Australian case against Andre Parenzee (2006) as a criminal victory, the lesser-known case of Eneydi Torres, 42 – who faced up to fifteen years in prison this year for allegedly exposing four men to HIV – has left them silent.

Like Willie Campbell and Philippe Padeau, Torres faced up to fifteen years for allegedly exposing several men to HIV. The prosecution’s case would have been winnable except that, unlike the Parenzee, Campbell and Padeau cases, Torres was complicated by a competent defense attorney and a recent US Supreme Court ruling that requires prosecutors to prove that HIV tests are reliable and that defendants are actually infected with an infectious disease.

Not only did attorney Baron Coleman require prosecutors to connect the double- and triple-hearsay reports of HIV positivity to the defendant years before the alleged crimes, but he also planned to call the scientifically-confused cast members from House of Numbers to explain themselves under oath. For example:

• Nancy Padian, MD – on why female-to-male HIV transmission is almost impossible
• John P. Moore, PhD – on how his alleged pandemic has never been statistically relevant in the US (and Europe, Australia and South Africa)
• Robert Gallo, MD – on exactly how he proved that HIV attacks cells and causes AIDS

Even if Ms. Torres believed that she was infected with HIV AND knowingly or deliberately exposed her unsuspecting victims, Mr. Coleman refused to allow his client to plead to much more than a dismissal.

Once they realized that they had no case, prosecutors reduced their initial offer of fifteen years in state prison to what amounted to five days of unsupervised probation. Although prepared for an acquittal, Ms. Torres agreed to pay a small fine and attended a short class that featured an hour of HIV propaganda.

Although the outcome wasn’t perfect, Torres illustrates how easily criminal HIV cases can be won when defense counsel doesn’t stipulate to propaganda. By forcing prosecutors to prove that HIV attacks cells and causes an infectious disease that someone could actually spread, Torres proved that prosecutors never had a case to begin with.

Despite this win, factually innocent men like Campbell and Padeau will likely spend the rest of their lives in prison for nothing more than accepting an unproven scientific theory.

Although others continue to be charged in various states for spreading this fake disease, Torres shows that – when questioned by competent counsel in uncorruptible courts – the PharmaSluts will prove to be the same clowns that House of Numbers proves them to be.

The autopsy, pathology, and the clinical data and observation… show clearly that Christine did not suffer from any AIDS indicator illness during the two years prior to her death or at the time of her death. The gross and microscopic examination of Christine lymphoid organs and bone marrow appeared normal. The growth of P. jiroveci observed in Christine’s lungs and other tissues resulted from her treatment with corticosteroids during the 9 days prior to her death…

When HIV skeptic Christine Maggiore passed away in December 2008, the PharmaSluts could not contain their elation.

Citing this LA Times report, gay activists and corrupt doctors claimed that Maggiore got what she deserved. What kind of money motivates for-rent professors like John Moore to write something like this on Seth Kalichman’s unscientific blog about a dead mother?

“Maggiore had the blood of thousands of South African kids on her hands after helping persuade Mbeki not to allow the use of Nevirapine to prevent HIV transmission from pregnant women to their children. She is also responsible for the premature death of her own daughter from AIDS. Allowing herself to die of AIDS-related pneumonia was unnecessary, but her culpability in the death of others is what she will be remembered for. Perhaps some of her friends will finally learn a lesson from what happened to her and cease their efforts to harm other people. But I doubt it, considering how crazy her fellow AIDS denialists are.“

Moore is the same heterophobe who wrote to another Maggiore friend, “This IS a war, there ARE no rules, and we WILL crush you.”

Although nothing contained in Moore’s stories were true, that didn’t stop fake reporters like Jonny Steinberg or Moore’s South African blogger-buddies from claiming that Maggiore died from AIDS:

Unfortunately, no autopsy was performed on Maggiore’s body, and she was cremated. Presumably, her family made these decisions. AIDS denialists often claim that they are victims of conspiracies and cover-ups. But they have been anything but transparent in the way they have handled the horrible and unnecessary death from HIV/AIDS of Christine Maggiore.

Unfortunately for these rent-a-PhD propagandists and fake journalists like Anna Gorman, Alexandra Zavis and Adam Feuerstein, an autopsy was done. But unlike the politically rushed job by Los Angeles County Deputy Coroner James Ribe, pathologists David M. Posey, MD and Mohammad Ali Al-Bayati, PhD, DABT, DABVT have completed their eleven-month investigation into Christine Maggiore’s death and found that, like most allegedly HIV+ patients and millions of other Americans, died from complications related to preventable adverse drug reactions (ADR).

I kept Maggiore’s autopsy confidential so that the pathologists would not be influenced or pressured by someone from within the LA County Department of Health like Walt Senterfitt. While I have nothing against gay atheist anti-capitalist social revolutionaries per se, I’d rather not have them dictating healthcare to LA County’s 11 million residents or risk having them pressure doctors into faking evidence that John Moore and Daniel Kuritzkes MD can use for propaganda the way Moore and Kuritzkes did in 2006:

Christine Maggiore is a person who’s proselytized against the use of antiretrovirals to prevent HIV/AIDS. She’s a classic AIDS denialist, and she gave birth to a child who died at age three late last year of an AIDS-related infection. The coroner’s report clearly reports that the child died of AIDS.

Had Dr. Ribe reported the obvious signs of anaphylactic shock in 2006, Moore and Kuritzkes could not have exploited the death as AIDS-related the way they exploited Christine’s death this past year. After Christine’s death, Dr. Ribe settled her family’s claims against him.

This is why doctors Posey and Al-Bayati quietly and methodologically took eleven months to collect the evidence and complete their report.

Other excerpts:

Christine was a well developed and well-nourished Caucasian woman who appeared younger than her age of 52 years. She measured 66 inches in length and weighed 145 pounds…

Christine did not have interstitial pneumonia and the edema observed in her lungs resulted from her heart and renal failure induced by medications.

The autopsy, pathology, and the clinical data and observation described in this report show clearly that Christine did not suffer from any AIDS indicator illness during the 2 years prior to her death or at the time of her death. It has been reported that Christine’s serum was tested positive for HIV with subsequent testing indeterminate in the 1990s. The clinical findings in Christine’s case clearly challenge the clinical and scientific validity of the HIV test, if it is intended as a certain marker of gradual immune demise, which she did not manifest. (full report here)

Celia Farber comments as well.

BREAKING NEWS – The drug industry pushes ineffective drugs and vaccines because they cannot profit from good nutrition or clean water – so says Nobel Laureate (2008) and HIV Discoverer Luc Montagnier, MD in this just-released video.

As I explained last Saturday, if the world learned today that HIV is no longer a threat, the financial and political beneficiaries of HIV and AIDS would no longer be needed and the CDC and NIAID have no rational reason to exist.

Since 1955, infectious disease has been statistically irrelevant (chart), so why does the Centers for Disease Control waste half of its $9.2 billion budget on HIV and immunizations?

House of Numbers shows audiences around the world that, without the hysterical fear of infectious disease, PharmaSluts on the government dole would have to find real jobs – which is why the documentary now poses an existential threat to these overpaid slugs.

At the start of the movie, Donald Francis MD claims that HIV “kills everything” and, at the documentary’s conclusionthe discoverer of HIV and Nobel Laureate Luc Montagnier MD concludes:

Montagnier: We can be exposed to HIV many times without being chronically infected… our immune system will get rid of the virus within a few weeks if you have a good immune system.

Brent Leung: If you have a good immune system then your body can naturally get rid of HIV?

Montagnier: Yes.

Brent Leung: If you take a poor African who’s been infected and you build up her immune system is it also possible for them to also naturally get rid of it?

Montagnier: I would think so…

While the lamestream media slept through Montagnier’s simple CURE FOR AIDS, the usual suspects accused the filmmaker of tricking (sucker-punching) the world-acclaimed scientists who appeared in the film. In response, Leung posted this additional clip, which added:

Montagnier: I would think so… It’s important knowledge, which is completely neglected. People always think of drugs and vaccine.

Brent Leung: There’s no money in nutrition, right?

Montagnier: There’s no profit, yes.

Still, this wasn’t enough for the pharmaceutical lawyers who ghostwrote Jeanne Bergman’s revised arguments. Although they acknowledge that the “discoverer of HIV” is “clearly not a denialist,” the lawyers that defend drugs like Benoxaprofen and Vioxx used Bergman’s rent-a-PhD to claim Leung “sucker-punched” Montagnier with “leading questions.”

To satisfy the PharmaSluts, Brent Leung has now released this never before seen exclusive video of his interview with Dr. Montagnier.

As you watch it, ask yourself these questions:

• Did the filmmaker fool him? Did Montagnier look “sucker-punched?

• Did Montagnier have a good command of the English language?
• Why does Montagnier smile at the end of the interview?