Michael D. Drobot, Chief Executive Officer of Pacific Hospital of Long Beach, filed a $50 million dollar defamation lawsuit against a group of plaintiff’s attorneys who he alleges have falsely claimed in broadcast comments that he and Pacific Hospital of Long Beach directed surgeons to install “counterfeit” screws in “thousands” of spinal-surgery patients.
The lawsuit, filed in Orange County Superior Court alleges that lawyers Brian Kabatek and Robert Hutchinson and the law firms of Kabateck Brown Kellner, Cotchett Pitre and McCarthy and Knox Ricksen made false claims in press statements “in an effort to disparage Michael D. Drobot and Pacific Hospital of Long Beach’s good name and reputation, and disrupt business operations for their own personal benefit.”
According to his press release Drobot claims “I never envisioned filing a lawsuit against a group of attorneys,,” said Drobot. “But these allegations are malicious and, most importantly, patently false. Not only do they portray me as someone I am not, but they needlessly create incredible anxiety for hundreds of former patients at Pacific Hospital. We did not compromise patient care at PHLB.”
The lawsuit alleges that Kabateck, during a July television interview with Fox 11, made multiple false and defamatory statements about “counterfeit” and “unsterilized” screws used on a patient during two 2010 surgeries. Several weeks later, attorney Hutchinson allegedly made many of the same defamatory remarks in a radio interview on CBS 2. The lawsuit alleges that the lawyers made the remarks as a solicitation for patients to join in their pending lawsuits against Drobot and Healthsmart Pacific, Inc. Among their claims: that Michael D. Drobot bribed government officials with money and prostitutes to sell and install the counterfeit screws into patients.
Drobot blasted the defamatory remarks in his defamation lawsuit, affirming under oath in a verified complaint that he and Pacific Hospital of Long Beach “never purchased or used any non-FDA-approved screws or other related parts made with non-FDA-approved materials for use in PHLB spinal surgeries.”
According to Drobot “Defendants made up the aforementioned false and defamatory statements broadcast on television, radio and Internet out of whole cloth,” the lawsuit alleges. “Ironically, Defendants’ false and defamatory statements likely will cause many PHLB spinal surgery patients to request and possibly undergo wholly unnecessary spinal surgeries simply to determine whether they, too, have received ‘counterfeit’ screws from PHLB.”
In February 2014, Drobot pled guilty to government allegations that he paid kickbacks to surgeons for referring patients to Pacific Hospital of Long Beach. The criminal case did not include allegations of providing counterfeit parts or devices to patients.
Hutchinson, in an interview with the Long Beach Press Telegram said the lawsuit is an attempt to intimidate him and other attorneys named, and to intimidate patients from coming forward in a pending lawsuit against Drobot and the company that previously owned Pacific Hospital. “(Drobot is) an admitted felon,” Hutchinson said. “This raises the issue of how can we defame someone when their own actions have tainted them far worse than any comments. He should know it’s not going to work.” The lawsuit is characteristic of a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, commonly known as SLAPP, used to try and censor, intimidate or silence critics by hampering them with legal costs until they abandon their criticism, Hutchinson said.
Drobot, 69, of Corona del Mar, was charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office with orchestrating a conspiracy from 1997 to 2013 in which tens of millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks were paid to doctors, chiropractors, marketers and others who referred patients to the former Pacific Hospital for spinal surgery. Prosecutors said that Drobot also paid $28,000 in bribes to state Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello, to support legislation delaying or limiting changes in workers’ compensation laws that would have directly affected Drobot’s scheme. The hospital submitted more than $500 million in fraudulent bills between 2008 and last year. Much of the total was paid by the California workers’ compensation system, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Drobot pleaded guilty in April to counts of conspiracy and payment of kickbacks for his activities in the scheme, and he faces 10 years in prison when he is sentenced in October 2015.