Remember Brian Persaud, the Brooklyn construction worker who tried to sue a New York hospital for performing a by-the-books rectal exam on him in 2003? On Monday, a Manhattan jury tossed his lawsuit, claiming he failed to show he suffered assault and battery. This means we’ll never get to hear both sides splitting hairs about what constitutes a full “rectal examination”—Persaud says the doctor did it, and the doctor says she didn’t.
Dr. Susan M. Trocciola, who was a resident in trauma medicine at the time, testified that she placed a finger in Mr. Persaud’s rectal area after conducting a physical exam of his spine to check for a spinal-cord injury.
Whether the rectal exam was performed was a matter of dispute. Mr. Persaud testified that he felt a finger inserted in his rectum, but Dr. Trocciola said the exam was never carried out.
What’s the real truth? Will it ever see the light of day?
Persaud’s own history and past behavior may have hurt his case:
Mr. Persaud was not necessarily the most sympathetic plaintiff. It emerged during the trial that Mr. Persaud, a native of Guyana who did not complete high school, had been convicted of two misdemeanors: attempted aggravated harassment for making phone calls to an ex-girlfriend’s mother in 2001 and criminal mischief for threatening a fellow motorist with a baseball bat after a minor car accident in 2007. Mr. Persaud had filed a workers’ compensation claim and also sued the owner of the site where he was injured. He was awarded about $4,000 in the compensation claim, but the suit was settled for a negligible sum, Mr. Marrone said.
In a phone interview, Mr. Marrone said of his client, “He’s not a perfect person, but he’s not a criminal by any standard of the word. He’s got a lot of anxiety. He reacts negatively in stressful situations and he has a short temper.”
“Jury Rejects Suit Over Attempted Rectal Exam” [New York Times "City Room" Blog]
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(Photo: Getty)
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@SuperJdynamite
amn, you beat me to it!
Mr. Marrone said of his client, “He’s not a perfect person, but he’s not a criminal by any standard of the word.
IANAL, but I am a thinker and I believe that if you have been convicted of a crime that makes you a criminal in every sense of the word.
Am I right?
“Why does everything today have to involve something going into or coming out of my ass!”
-Cartman
Er, guys?
The doctor said she “placed a finger in Mr. Persaud’s rectal area,” not “placed a finger in Mr. Persaud’s rectum.”
That means on the bum, not in the bum.
Clarification from a qualified person in the field:
1) Rectal exam is to evaluate for spinal trauma/decreased rectal tone
2) A patient can decline anything, however(see 3)…
3) In “emergent” (read “trauma, possibly life-threatening”) situations staff follow procedure to revive/resuscitate the patient; ditto if patient is not of sound mind in an emergent situation.
Anyway – clearly the guy is just some random jackass who wants to make a quick buck by suing another physician doing their job.
No bum-check = “I’m suing you because I am paralyzed and you should have known”.
Go bum-check = “I’m suing you because you assaulted me”.
….
@forgottenpassword: I disagree that ER staff have no compassion. They do, but you have to respect them as well. If you’re screaming in the nurse’s face that she’s a “stupid white bitch” she’s not going to want to be quite so nice to you. Show them a little respect and they’ll be more pleasant.
He probably would’ve sued if he was paralyzed and they didn’t do the rectal exam at his request. If I was the hospital, I’d rather pay a settlement for poking around in someone’s pooper than paying because someone omitted the prostate exam and the patient was paralyzed as a result.
And then the doctor says, “OK, how many fingers am I holding up NOW?”
@UFIA: I spit soda laughing.