15 Dec $1.6 billion
$1.6 billion was awarded to 104 women who accused former New York pediatrician Stuart Copperman of sexual abuse.
104 women who claimed they were sexually abused by Stuart Copperman, a former pediatrician who owned and operated a Merrick practice, have received settlements totaling $1.6 billion
One of Anapol Weiss’s shareholders, Kristen Gibbons Feden, was among the attorneys representing the victims, as was one of Gruenberg Kelly Della’s partners, Michael Della.
Copperman lost his medical license in 2000, after six women testified to the state Board of Professional Medical Conduct that he had molested them while they were patients in the medical practice he ran out of the basement of his Hewlett Avenue home.
Almost two decades later, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the New York State Child’s Victims Act into law, establishing a “revival” period, in which victims of abused could file civil lawsuits that would have been barred under the prior statute of limitations. That window closed in August 2021.
In that two-year period, 104 women who claimed Copperman abused them, filed lawsuits against him and his medical practice, Stuart Copperman, M.D.
The first victim of Copperman was heard in court on Aug. 25, 2023. A Nassau County Supreme Court judge awarded the victim $5 million in punitive damages and $17 million in compensatory damages. Documents from that hearing, filed with the county clerk’s office, stated that the plaintiff was a then-41-year-old woman who was a patient of Copperman’s. For roughly 18 years, according to the documents, the plaintiff was subject to
several acts of abuse.
An expert witness, a psychotherapist, was present at the hearing.
“Although (the) plaintiff felt confusion by such examinations and that something was ‘off,’ she never fully appreciated that Copperman’s actions constituted abuse until she was older and no longer Copperman’s patient,” one document reads. “The effect of the abuse was traumatic. As testified by (the) plaintiff’s expert, it resulted in a number of psychological disorders, including eating disorders, dissociative identity disorder and self-injury.
“Copperman’s abuse has robbed the plaintiff of a normal, healthy and happy life,” the document continues. “The court finds that the psychological scars resulting from the abuse are permanent.”
Mike Della, an attorney with the Long Island-based Gruenberg Kelly Della, who also represented plaintiffs against Copperman, said in 2023: “Copperman was not a kind, compassionate pediatrician — the public image he nurtured; he was a monster doing barbaric things on his examination table to these children, irreparably destroying many lives.”
Plaintiffs were able to testify orally or through written documents, with affidavits — confirmed written statements — used as evidence in courts.
According to a Newsday report on the same matter, Nassau Supreme Court Justice Leonard D. Steinman and additional legal referees reviewed each of the 104 cases over the last 19-month period, and issued damages to every plaintiff who sued Copperman, who did not present a defense to the suits. Decisions in the last five cases were filed on Friday.