NEW YORK (AP) – A Connecticut physician whose wife died after what he called “gross negligence” during routine face-lift surgery settled with the hospital and the attending anesthesiologist Thursday for a total of $3.1 million.
The parties settled the malpractice lawsuit filed by Alan J. Malitz, whose wife, Susan, died about two hours after entering Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital for the cosmetic procedure on Feb. 16, 2004.
Malitz’ lawyer, Tom Moore, said the city medical examiner found the 56-year-old woman died of cardiac failure caused by an overdose of local anesthetic.
He also said alarms that monitored Susan Malitz’ blood oxygen were turned down so that they were inaudible. He called that situation “mindboggling.”
Alan Malitz, a urologist who lives in Easton, Conn., was married 30 years and has a 26-year-old daughter, Moore said.
He sued the hospital; Dr. Sherrell Aston, the plastic surgeon and head of the cosmetic surgery department; Dr. Gary Mellen, the anesthesiologist; and a hospital resident, Spero Theodoru.
Moore said the settlement, reached after four days of trial in Manhattan’s state Supreme Court, calls for the anesthesiologist to pay $2.7 million and for the hospital to pay $400,000.
The hospital and the anesthesiologist’s lawyer said they had no comment on the case.
Aston’s attorney, Peter Kopff, said all claims against his client and against Theodoru were discontinued because they could not be proved.
Aston, chairman of the hospital’s cosmetic surgery department, has been called the Aesthetic Magician of the Stars, and his patients reportedly have included Tipper Gore, the wife of former Vice President Al Gore; former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole; Vogue magazine editor Anna Wintour and actress Catherine Deneuve.
In 2004, 5 1/2 weeks before Susan Malitz died at the hospital, “First Wives Club” author Olivia Goldsmith died there during cosmetic surgery, Moore recalled.
And later that year, Loretta Shifren, 61 and the mother of two, suffered brain damage after a face-lift procedure, Moore said. He said Shifren, who also was one of his clients, settled her lawsuit for $7 million.
AP-ES-05-24-07 1747EDT
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