Health Law
Fertility Docs’ Partnership Dispute Involves Phony Patient Claims
Posted Apr 13, 2009, 12:24 pm CST
By Martha Neil
At least one female private detective had an ultrasound exam of her uterus and ovaries. Meanwhile, a physician submitted his own sperm sample to a medical rival.
It was all part of a hard-fought six-year legal battle between competing fertility specialists who once a lucrative partnership together, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Joel Batzofin, now 56, initially did well with the clinic he founded in 1988. But after he brought in partners, they eventually voted him out, the newspaper recounts.
"I did not understand how evil people could be," says Batzofin, who sought arbitration and won a $1.5 million settlement, entering into a noncompetition agreement in several California counties as part of the deal.
When he set up a fertility clinic in New York and affiliated with an operation that had an office in the portion of California he'd agreed to stay away from, the conflict sparked anew. Arguing that he had breached the settlement agreement, his former partners stopped paying, the Times reports.
Then litigation began between Batzofin and his new affiliate.
Although the bulk of the claims and counterclaims are now resolved, an invasion of privacy lawsuit is ongoing. In it, a physician claims he suffered severe emotional distress and anxiety after finding out he had performed unnecessary invasive procedures on at least one phony patient.
For more details of the convoluted dispute, read the full article.