Fen-Phen Counsel Exaggerated Heart Issue & Sexually Harassed, Client Says
A former client has sued the law firm that helped her win a $2,000 settlement in national diet drug litigation, contending that she suffered severe emotional distress because of the firm’s exaggeration of her heart symptoms and sexual harassment by an attorney working on her case.
Attorney Robert Riley of Louisville, Ky., admits that he used poor judgment by engaging in “sexual banter” with Patricia Fulkerson, but claimed in a deposition that “she seemed very willing to participate,” reports the Louisville Courier-Journal.
He and his firm, Florida-based Wasserman Riley & Associates, also argued that the alleged alteration of her medical records doesn’t amount to malpractice because “the claimed goal of the alleged malpractice was to get her more money.”
The chief judge of Jefferson County Circuit Court, who is presiding over the Kentucky case, ruled that Fulkerson can proceed to trial with her assertions that she suffered needless worry about her health and feared she might die after being shown an echocardiogram that, she says she was told, revealed her heart was like a tire that could be about to burst.
A former paralegal who was fired by the firm testified in a deposition that it exaggerated symptoms of about six clients it represented in a class action over the fen-phen diet drug combination. But, she said, most were happy to realize they would get more money and only Fulkerson became “hysterical” over the results, the newspaper reports.
Fulkerson says she subsequently paid $2,400 for a private test that showed only minor heart damage.
In phone conversations taped by Fulkerson, Riley makes suggestive comments, including a statement at one point that he wanted to touch her breasts, the Courier-Journal reports.
