Oftentimes, these doctors make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year doing these exams.  It’s no surprise then when the reports always come back supporting whatever the insurance company or the insurance company lawyer wanted the report to say.

I’ve written about this problem before, including:

• “Independent” Medical Exams In Personal Injury Cases
• The New York Times Tells The Story of “Independent” Medical Exams

Now, I’ve been alerted to a disturbing blog post by a Michigan personal injury lawyer, Steven Gurstein, describing his experience with an “independent” medical exam.  In the post, entitled “Sticks and Stone and….attorney disbarment. Will the First Amendment lose out when IME doctor files grievance to conceal her testimony in injury cases from the public”, Mr. Gurstein outlines his issues with Dr. Rosalind Griffin, who performed an exam on one of his clients.

I can find a number of posts about abusive medical exams on lawyers’ blogs, but Mr. Gurstein’s stands out for a couple of reasons.

Mr. Gurstein had his client’s exam video-taped, and he went to great lengths to explain in his blog post many of the alleged inconsistencies between what happened in the exam and what the doctor reported.  It’s fascinating to read and is a good primer on the types of problems that you can see in these exams.  I would recommend it for anyone interested in the issue or anyone who might be undergoing an exam.

Dr. Rosalind Griffin was apparently upset with Mr. Gurstein, and Dr. Griffin reportedly filed a grievance against Mr. Gurstein.  That is shocking.  I don’t know the intricacies of Michigan ethics law, and I don’t even know the substance of any allegation (I didn’t read the complaint that Mr. Gurstein linked), but if that happened here in Texas, given what is reported, I would think it was a clear abuse of the process.  It’s the type of thing that I would expect to be summarily dismissed by the bar here.

Even more shocking is that Dr. Rosalind Griffin is apparently on the Attorney Discipline Board that might hear Mr. Gurstein’s case.  How does that happen?  In Texas, we do allow non-lawyers to serve on our grievance hearings, but I can’t imagine that anyone who is as intimately involved in the litigation process as Dr. Rosalind Griffin seems to be, should be on the committee.

I don’t know what will happen to Mr. Gurstein, but if what he’s reporting is truthful, it seems like this is the type of information that we want the public to see, and not something that should be hidden.

According to the lawsuit, Mills began working for the university in 1992 and became a tenured professor in August 2010. When the university separated from Texas Southmost College, university officials claimed that the split required faculty cutbacks, and Mills and 87 other faculty members received notice that their positions would be terminated. However, Mills alleges that the university actually sought to hire instructors, including in the English department, at the same time her employment was being terminated.

Mills is seeking a court order for her position to be reinstated. The lawsuit names the university itself and three university officials, including the university’s President Juliet Garcia, as defendants.

Mills alleges in the lawsuit that a Department Review Committee recommended to Garcia that four out of 21 faculty members’ positions be terminated, but that one of the committee members submitted false information indicating that another professor was above Mills in the university’s hierarchy. Mills claims that Garcia relied on this information in terminating her employment. According to the lawsuit, Mills appealed her termination to a university Hearing Committee, which unanimously recommended that the decision to terminate her employment be reversed. However, Garcia ignored this recommendation.

The lawsuit cites the free speech clause of the First Amendment and the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment as “protections for the academic community.” A request for a temporary restraining order preventing Mills’ termination was denied.

Gregory D. Jordan is an employment lawyer. To learn more, visit http://www.theaustintriallawyer.com or call 512-419-0684.