We were coerced into signing a General Release. In return for a “consideration” of $500,000 we swore to hold the hospital “blameless” and never to talk openly about what happened to Seth at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. How did it come about that we signed such a document? And what happened (and is happening) subsequently?
Appeal was taken in September 2000, against Justice Sherri Klein-Heitler’s 28 page Decision and Order in which she denied our motion to vacate the General Release we had signed to “settle” our case against Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. Justice Klein-Heitler’s Decision and our initial appeal will be posted on future updates of the website.
We initiated a lawsuit to vacate that portion of the contract that requires our silence. We filed a lawsuit against Columbia Presbyterian Hospital for the recovery our First Amendment Rights. We asked the Hospital to pay us the compensation they agreed to. We petitioned the Court to relieve us of the “Contract for Silence” we were coerced into signing by the Judge and our former attorney.
We wrote a document questioning certain activities of Noah Berkowitz, M.D., Ph.D., while he was a student at the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Berkowitz did his medical residency training at the NCI that was completed in June, 1998. Shortly after completing his training, Physician Choice Inc., a company he started while still a student at the NCI was bought for $1,000,000 by a New York based cancer information company known as IMPATH.
We started a lawsuit against the lawyer who coerced us. There was an attempt to silence our case by an unscrupulous lawyer with political connections. The Courts have been all too willing to sanction this.
The United States Supreme Court refused to review the matter. This action did not mean we are incorrect. As the Court points out, many petitions for which the decision is “Cert Denied” are legally correct. The problem is that the Court receives over 8,000 petitions each year and only reviews around 70 of them in any year.
