Jury awards $3.5M in employment dispute
After hearing two weeks of testimony, a Washington County jury deliberated Friday afternoon and awarded $3.5 million in damages to a heart surgeon who maintained his employment was wrongfully terminated.
Dr. Antonio Sortino claimed Washington Hospital President and Chief Executive Officer Gary B. Weinstein improperly interfered with Sortino’s employment contract with Three Rivers Cardiac Institute Inc., in which the physician was a shareholder.
Sortino worked at Washington Hospital during a 17-year period and named him medical director of cardiovascular surgery services in July 2011. Sortino said he spoke out about deficiencies patients experienced at the hospital, and his dismissal occurred after an outburst Nov. 22 of that year in the intensive care unit.
“Dr. Sortino’s passion for patient care got the better of him and he lost his temper and raised his voice at the nurses” in the unit,” according to the complaint he filed two years later against Weinstein and the hospital.
Sortino refused to resign from his position at the hospital and blamed Weinstein for firing him despite a petition of support signed by 56 critical care unit and operating room staff members.
“Why would it be difficult for a heart surgeon to go out and get a new job?” asked his attorney, Anthony Cillo, last week.
“Starting to work in a new institution, everybody does things a little differently,” Sortino testified. “A senior surgeon like myself, it’s not that my way is better, it’s better for me. Every time I start somewhere new, I have to go through the burden of reacquainting myself with new people, new ways.”
He was bound by agreements that prohibited from practicing at competing hospitals in the immediate area, and described his life as “destroyed.”
The surgeon eventually found work in Butler, Johnstown, Morgantown, W.Va., and Canton, Ohio, renting apartments while he stayed in the vicinity of his family home in Wexford, Allegheny County.
His 2011 federal tax return showed he earned $627,611, but the next year, his income plummeted by more than $150,000. In addition to lost wages, he claimed his reputation suffered and experienced emotional distress.
In his closing argument Friday morning, attorney Phillip J. Binotto, representing the defendants, said to the jury about Sortino, “He wants Washington Hospital to pay for his lack of leadership and lack of communication skills,” noting Sortino’s earnings have increased over the years. “Is this a case about a passion for patients, or is this case just about money?
“He was an excellent surgeon. We do not dispute that. If he disrespects one person, if he intimidates one person, that’s one person too many.”