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Judge Leslie C. Nichols of the Santa Clara County Superior Court
in San Jose, CA, presided over a medical malpractice trial against a
doctor who did the wrong surgery on me. This doctor, who is board
certified and teaches at Stanford, not only operated on the wrong leg,
but he operated on more than a dozen of the wrong parts of my body. He
operated on both knees for no reason and without my consent, and now my
formerly perfect knees cause me constant pain, as my kneecaps are
dislocating. I cannot kneel down at all anymore. This doctor carved
large X's 8-9" long in my hips, something no doctor, including his
expert witness, could explain. He remove a large section of my calves, and there were sutures in my pubic area, all for no reason and without my consent. This was more like a rape than an operation - he violated my body when I was unconscious and unable to protect myself.
The first part of the trial was to determine the validity of a release I
signed - a release which was signed before most of the damage was even
known to me (my body was swollen from the surgery and the damage was not
visible). This release should have been thrown out because all the
evidence presented showed that I did not and could not have known the
damage this doctor did to me at the time that I signed it, and there was
no waiver of Civil Code 1542, which says that you cannot waive your
right to sue over things you do not know about. There were photos of my
body at the time I signed the release, and then photos taken several
months to more than a year later, and they were totally different - the
damage did not appear until months after signing the release. The doctor
presented no evidence that I did know of the damage when I signed the
release - in fact he denied that there was any damage at all.
Judge Nichols saw the doctor's own records which proved he operated on
the wrong leg and all the other parts. He saw the big hole in my right
leg where the doctor had operated for no reason and without consent. He
saw the X's carved into my hips. He saw the photos of damage to my
knees, calves and several other parts. The doctor's lawyer did not
refute any of this, and presented no affirmative evidence as to why the
doctor should have operated on all these wrong parts. They were
virtually silent, except to give a blanket statement denying my
allegations. The doctor himself in his sworn statement didn't even deny
having done anything wrong, he merely said, "I didn't think I did
anything wrong".
I gave a detailed account of conversations with the doctor where
initially he denied having operated on the wrong leg, then when
confronted with the proof in his own records that he had, he then made
up a story as to why he didn't operate on the right leg. There were many
more lies over a period of months, I presented evidence that the doctor
altered the medical records, and lied to me in writing. None of this
was refuted by the doctor - they were silent.
So at the end of the trial, I was certain I had won - it was so
one-sided it was ridiculous. I was shocked when I got Judge Nichols'
ruling against me - and not only did he rule against me and uphold the
release, he was very hostile to me, as if I were the one who had done
something wrong. He did not mention one word about the doctor operating
on the wrong parts, altering the medical records, lying to me. No, what
stood out in Judge Nichols' mind was that I referred to the doctor by
his last name instead of calling him Dr. ____, and he chastised me for
it. So Nichols thinks that my lack of the utmost respect for this man
who has mutilated me is worse than the mutilation itself?! He even
said in his ruling that he didn't think the doctor did anything wrong.
Nichols, oh, excuse me, JUDGE Nichols ordered me to pay the doctor's
attorney's fees, and I have since had to go through bankruptcy because
of this. He ordered me to remove all posts on the internet about what
the doctor did to me, and I am prohibited from talking to anyone about
what he did. (I can and do post about what this doctor has done to other
people).
I was very suspicious of the judge's ruling, so I looked him up on the
internet, and lo and behold, he and the doctor are the same age, they
both went to Stanford, and they have lived and/or worked close to each
other for decades. And I recently found out the judge, doctor & their wives are
members of a small community organization near their homes.
There is more - a few days before the trial, Judge Nichols had a
conference with my lawyer, and they all decided that there would
be no jury, no witnesses would be called and there would be no testimony.
My internist was going to testify, as was another woman who also had the wrong parts worked on and damaged by the same doctor. My lawyer never told me about the meeting, and when the trial started without a jury I called him aside and asked what was going on. He told me that for the first part of the trial I didn't have a
choice of a jury. And then when we went back to court he told the judge
I had misunderstood him. But Nichols paid little attention, even though
the trial had just started minutes before, and we went on with the
bench trial. It wasn't until the whole thing was over and I got Nichols'
tentative ruling against me, and it said, "she freely and intelligently
waived her right to a jury trial" that I realized that my lawyer had
done this behind my back (presumably to avoid paying jury fees and to
get the whole thing over with quickly).
I wrote to Judge Nichols telling him of my lawyer's deception, and reminded him that as soon as the trial started without a jury, I called my lawyer aside. But Nichols
ignored my letter and made the final ruling against me.
So I had explained to the judge that I never waived my right to a jury
trial, my lawyer told the judge I didn't realize I was waiving my right
to a jury trial (he was lying, he did it without even consulting me), so
where in the world is Judge Nichols getting this evidence that I freely
and intelligently waived my right to a jury trial? Out of thin air? And
exactly what was said at that pre-trial meeting to get my lawyer to go
from fighting for justice to selling me out?
And that is not all that happened - I realized about a year after the
trial that there was a loophole in the judge's ruling, and after
consulting with several lawyers to make sure I was within my rights to
do so, I posted on the internet about how the doctor had gotten a
restraining order against me by lying under oath, saying that I
threatened his employees. He totally fabricated this story, and
eventually the restraining order was overturned on constitutional
grounds by the First Amendment Project in Oakland. But when I posted
about this, the doctor filed a contempt of court motion against me, and
Judge Nichols threatened to throw me in county jail for 5 days if I did
not remove the post. I spent my last of my money fighting this, but my
new lawyer said it would cost $15K or more to continue the fight, and I
finally had to remove the post. Judge Nichols violated my Constitutional right to free
speech to protect this doctor, who is obviously his friend.
I complied with Nichol's ruling that I not talk about what the doctor did to me, but when I got evidence that the judge & doctor are friends who conspired to fix the trial, my friend and I posted about that. The doctor has filed another contempt motion against me, and they are trying to throw me in jail for exposing their fraud and corruption.
I just had my 30th surgery to try to fix the doctor's mistakes,
and I am not even close to being whole again. I have constant pain in my
knees, I have fallen down stairs 4 times, and I can't sleep because of
the pain. I lost my business because I was so depressed, and I work 7 days
without a break to pay for it all.
I am a single mother, and my daughter and I were evicted from two apartments since this disastrous surgery because I couldn't pay the rent. No one knows if my
knees or other parts will ever be fixed. I had to go to Mexico 8 times for artificial fillers to fill in the large concave areas made when this ###ic doctor operated on my
formerly perfect calves for no reason. I still have the traces of X's on
my hips. The extreme stress of all of this has caused my adrenals to shut down,
and I am not well.
Because of Nichols' ruling, I will never be compensated for my injuries, and I am afraid of what will happen to me in the future, and whether I will be able to pay for the
surgeries I still need. You cannot imagine the horror of having parts of
your body removed and operated on against your will, and then going to
the system looking for justice but instead getting raped all over again.
I have cried buckets of tears.
If there is any real justice in this world, there is a special place in hell reserved for these two.