Yesterday we reviewed portions of the powerful but painful-to-read opening statement of plaintiff-side personal injury lawyer Evan Torgan, Esq. in the case of Jones and Jones v. Daniel Evan (Dan) Spitzer, M.D. et al., Index # 31649/2011 (Sup. Ct. Rockland Co. 2011). Again, that's defendant Dan Spitzer's photograph above, apparently taken back in the days when he was still a practicing neurosurgeon. And yes, he is indeed the same Dan Spitzer that has caused mounds of trouble in Piermont, New York this year, due to the unforgiveable manner in which Spitzer enabled and indeed supported overdevelopment to be engendered by an ill-conceived "CBM Zone". It's the same guy - Eliot Spitzer's brother:
Jones v. Dan Spitzer et al. was a heavily-publicized medical malpractice case wherein a kind and hard-working innocent lady with a family was permanently paralyzed as a result of spinal surgery worked by, inter alia, the same Daniel Evan Spitzer. Mrs. Jones died some time thereafter. Although later reduced by further proceedings, the initial jury verdict came in for the husband and wife Jones plaintiffs at Fifty-Six Million Dollars (US$56,000,000) - reported to be one of the 100 highest personal injury verdicts in the United States during the 2019 calendar year when rendered:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/10/top-100-medical-malpractice-verdicts-in.html Piermont's Dan Spitzer was a neurosurgeon. No more, though. In the Jones v. Spitzer case, Dan Spitzer worked with a younger neurosurgeon who was not even board-certified at the time. When testifying at the trial, Dan Spitzer actually indicated under oath repeatedly that he had no memory of the case, and therefore could only speak to what usual custom and practice was. (Please see the Torgan opening statement excerpts printed below, which spell this out in greater and in even more maddening detail).
So why review this Dan Spitzer medical malpractice case now? Because Piermont residents have a current right to know, and indeed a current need to know, whether former neurosurgeon Dan Spitzer is honorable and tells the truth. You see, Dan Spitzer has essentially lived the equivalent of several lives already. Until Dan Spitzer quit his government post in disgrace this past April, 2024, Dan Spitzer served as Chair of the Village of Piermont Planning Board. Dan Spitzer apparently wanted something to bide his time once he "retired" from medical practice, so he glommed on to Piermont Village government. The residents of Piermont suffered as a result. Poor Mrs. Jones suffered much worse in the Jones v. Spitzer medical malpractice case. Yet we are trained to believe that physicians are put on this earth to do no harm.
Until recently, we thought that we were finished with Dan Spitzer. Done. Yet Dan Spitzer re-emerged a few days ago like Glenn Close's character in the film "Fatal Attraction". On October 10, 2024, documents were submitted to the Rockland County Department of Planning, in which former neurosurgeon Dan Spitzer, by virtue of his printed name as "Responsible Officer in Lead Agency", appears to have certified and attested that the "CBM Zone" proposed by Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker and others in Piermont government would have no significant adverse environmental impact on the Village.
While the signature on the signature-line intended for Dan Spitzer on one of the two documents is near-indecipherable in a manner consistent with the way in which doctors scrawl, let's assume for the time being anyway that Mayor Bruce Tucker did not forge a scrawl on Spitzer's signature-line and then fraudulently submit the document pretending to be Spitzer (since that would be quite a different case):
Mayor Bruce Tucker separately attested and certified to equivalent effect regarding environmental non-impact. Yet both sets of attestations and certifications, as indicated by the plain meaning of the writing above, read as on-record and in-writing lies by Spitzer and Tucker when and whenever made. They remain on-record and in-writing lies by Spitzer and Tucker now:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/10/commissioner-schuetz-tear-down-this.html
Again, did Tucker forge a scrawled signature on Spitzer's signature-line pretending to be Spitzer? Did Tucker cause the "re-submission" of this Spitzer attestation and certification without Spitzer's knowledge or consent? Does Tucker hate Spitzer enough to do that to Spitzer?
After all, it is difficult to fathom why a neurosurgeon would cause a rank falsehood in a subscribed-to writing to be submitted to a government agency. We all know that such a writing would be FOIL-able - and besides, what about the underlying obvious ethical-compass question to begin with? Isn't there a Commandment on point - or at least an ordinance? Even if the Hippocratic oath does not specifically say, "Doctor, thou shalt not file false instruments with the Rockland County Department of Planning after you retire", doesn't Kohlberg's theory of moral development tell us that presumptively intelligent people tend to dwell on higher moral ground?:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development Well, don't tell Kohlberg, but sometimes theories get disproven. And perhaps sometimes we shouldn't presume so much.
Please see below. In reading the case file of Jones and Jones v. Daniel Evan (Dan) Spitzer, M.D. et al., we learn that Dan Spitzer participated in a spinal surgery that left an innocent woman permanently paralyzed. Yet the critical moral issue here isn't hand-to-eye coordination. The critical moral issue here is why Dan Spitzer and his surgical cronies didn't tell anybody after the surgical injury happened, until after it was too late for Mrs. Jones to ever walk again.
According to plaintiff counsel Evan Torgan, Esq., the motility and quality of life of Mrs. Jones could have been saved, yet it was really the cover-up perpetrated by the surgical team that did her in and left her permanently paralyzed. That's absolutely outrageous. The transcripts comprise one of the most infuriating incriminations of supposed professionals that one would ever want to read, particularly of surgeons and a medical practice that once operated so close to home:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/10/dan-spitzer-ex-chair-piermont-planning.html Dan Spitzer former neurosurgeon, IS Dan Spitzer former and recently-departed Piermont Planning Board Chair.
Do you agree with plaintiff counsel to the Jones couple, Evan Torgan, Esq., regarding the concerted group suppression and concealment of the harm perpetrated to Mrs. Jones by the self-same surgical team? Well, in 2019, one Rockland County jury did agree with Attorney Torgan - 56 million dollars worth. Torgan's full opening statement in the Jones v. Spitzer medical malpractice litigation is here:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2024/10/jones-v-dan-spitzer-plaintiff-opening.html Yet I realize, the opening statement is a lengthy document to read, not to mention extremely difficult emotionally, even for the most emotionally-resilient of us. So, the second key excerpt from Attorney Torgan's opening statement regarding the unfathomable collective amnesia of former neurosurgeon Dan Spitzer and virtually all of his fellow doctors on the same Jones case, is printed below in relevant part. More will follow:
- - - - -
63-66
Jones and Jones
v. Daniel Evan (Dan) Spitzer, M.D. et al. - Plaintiff Opening Statement
“... They don’t run those [motor-evoked potentials] for
another seven to ten minutes after they did the laminectomies. So, the question
is and the question I’m going to ask is what was going on for those seven
minutes that they couldn’t run those [motor-evoked potentials][?].
Well, when [Dr. Huang, the neurophysiologist] finally got
permission to run the [motor-evoked potentials] from Dr. Jones or Dr. Spitzer, who was in the room too,
the [motor-evoked potentials] had dropped out… The [motor-evoked potentials] into the first dorsal interosseous w[ere] completely gone 90%.
Right leg, completely
gone.
Great toe extensor, almost completely gone.
So, the key is[,] do they come back[?].
And the answer is[,] they perform the entire surgery without them coming back
completely. They didn’t stop the surgery.
They just kept going.
They put in the
screws. They put in the rods. They tightened them. That’s what they did.
Now, let me tell you what happens
by protocol whenever the [motor-evoked potentials] go down.
Okay. And by the way Dr. Spitzer testified at a deposition…
On a patient
who was paralyzed, on a patient who ended up with an epidural hematoma and a
spine fluid leak and ended up in Helen Hayes Hospital rehab, and they went to
visit her there, they didn’t remember anything about her. They didn’t remember what she looked like.
They didn’t remember the case. It was
just another surgery. They said they didn’t remember anything.
So, by protocol, however, this is
what happens in the OR when the [motor-evoked potentials] go down… So, this – this neurosurgical
group that didn’t remember anything about that Patty Jones, what she looked
like, what happened, the surgery, didn’t remember any of it, they had Dr. Degen
watching the surgery back in the office on a computer screen, billing for
it. They had Dr. Spitzer assisting in
there, billing for it. They had a physician’s assistant who worked at the group,
assisting. And they had Dr. Jones doing
it.
And Jones, Spitzer, Degen, and the neurophysiologist
and Mills, the PA, they had five people involved in one surgery. There was no reason for that. That doesn’t
happen.
They had five people involved in
this, yet not one of those five people remembered anything about Patty Jones, about
the surgery, about what happened, about the CAT scans, what they were thinking,
what happened in the room.
Can you imagine five members in one
group involved in one surgery and no one remembering it where someone is a
quadraplegic? Yes, it was ten years ago, but we had discovery. There are meetings
[when] people go [south] during surgery.
These things are addressed immediately." [Emphasis added].
- - - - -
Source: Jones
and Jones v. Daniel Evan (Dan) Spitzer, M.D. et al., Index #
31649/2011 (Sup. Ct. Rockland Co. 2011): Plaintiff Opening Statement by Evan Torgan,
Esq., attorney for plaintiffs Patricia (Patty) Jones and John (Jack) Jones, at pages 63-66.
