This text was produced by The Salt Lake Tribune, which was a member of ProPublica’s Native Reporting Community in 2023. Join Dispatches to get tales like this one as quickly as they’re printed.
Sexual assault isn’t well being care, and it isn’t coated by Utah’s medical malpractice legislation, the state’s Supreme Court docket dominated on Thursday. The choice revives a lawsuit filed by 94 girls who allege their OB-GYN sexually abused them throughout exams or whereas he delivered their infants.
In 2022, the group of girls sued Dr. David Broadbent and two hospitals the place he had labored, wanting to hunt civil damages. However a choose dismissed their case as a result of he determined that they had filed it incorrectly as a civil sexual assault declare quite than a medical malpractice case. The ladies had all been in search of well being care, Choose Robert Lunnen wrote, and Broadbent was offering that when the alleged assaults occurred.
The Salt Lake Tribune and ProPublica coated the choice, talking with girls concerning the decrease court docket ruling that made it more durable for them to sue the physician for his alleged actions. After that story ran, the state Legislature voted to reform medical malpractice legislation to exclude sexual assault. However the brand new legislation didn’t apply retroactively; the ladies nonetheless had no strategy to sue.
In order that they took their case to the Utah Supreme Court docket, the place their attorneys argued that the decrease court docket choose had made an error in his resolution. The excessive court docket agreed. Broadbent’s alleged conduct, it discovered, was not part of the ladies’s well being care — and subsequently, not coated by Utah’s medical malpractice legal guidelines.
“Right here, the [women] don’t allege they had been injured by any well being care that Broadbent could have offered them,” Justice Paige Petersen wrote within the unanimous ruling. “Quite, they allege that he abused his place as their physician to sexually assault them underneath the pretense of offering well being care.”
“The purpose of their claims is that his actions had been probably not well being care in any respect,” Petersen added.
Stephanie Mateer was the primary lady who spoke out publicly about Broadbent, detailing her expertise on the “Mormon Tales” podcast in 2021. Within the episode, she described what she stated was the painful method the physician examined her, the way it left her feeling traumatized and the way she found on-line opinions that echoed her expertise.
She stated on Thursday that she cried “tears of reduction” when she learn the Utah Supreme Court docket’s ruling, and that she hopes it provides different alleged victims the braveness to talk up and to hunt their very own justice.
Adam Sorenson, an legal professional for the ladies who sued, famous on Thursday that it’s been virtually two years since Lunnen threw out their case — which he stated was a “unhappy and disappointing day.”
“However the Utah Supreme Court docket’s resolution at this time affirms all the things these girls have stated from the start, and tells each individual in Utah that sexual abuse by a well being care supplier by no means has been, and by no means will likely be, ‘well being care,’” he stated.
“It’s troublesome to explain how good it’s to listen to that from our highest court docket,” he continued, “however any pleasure I really feel is nothing in comparison with the ladies who suffered sexual abuse, [who] had been informed it was simply well being care, have fought for 3 years, and may now say that the legislation in Utah is on their facet on this essential concern.”
For the ladies who sued, having their case characterised as malpractice lowered the time they needed to sue to 2 years and restricted the sum of money they might obtain for ache and struggling.
With the Utah Supreme Court docket’s resolution, the case now returns to Lunnen’s courtroom. Their swimsuit alleges that Broadbent inappropriately touched their breasts, vaginas and rectums, with out warning or rationalization, and harm them. Some stated he used his naked hand — as an alternative of utilizing a speculum or carrying gloves — throughout exams. One alleged that he had an erection whereas he was touching her.
An legal professional for Broadbent has denied these girls’s allegations, saying they’re “with out benefit.” The OB-GYN agreed final yr to cease training drugs whereas police and prosecutors examine.
He was charged in June in 4th District Court docket with one depend of forcible sexual abuse, and prosecutors say their investigation is continuous. Broadbent is predicted to make his first court docket look Monday.
Broadbent’s legal professional didn’t reply to a request for touch upon Thursday. Neither Utah Valley Hospital nor Mountainstar Well being, which owns Timpanogos Hospital, reacted to the ruling in statements launched Thursday. Each hospitals are named as defendants within the lawsuit, and each emphasised that Broadbent had privileges to observe at their amenities however was not an worker.
