Mark T. Quigley

Quigley made headlines in February when a Los Angeles jury awarded his client Minakshi Jafa-Bodden $7.3 million in a sexual harassment and wrongful termination lawsuit against yoga guru Bikram Choudry. Jafa-Bodden was Choudry's former in-house lawyer, and her lawsuit spurred subsequent sexual harassment complaints against Choudry. Minakashi Jafa-Bodden v. Bikram Choudry, BC512041 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed June 13, 2013).

"They appealed but have not filed an opening brief," Quigley said of Choudry's defense team.

"In our estimation, he is being very evasive," Quigley added, noting shortly after the verdict Choudry left the country.

The bulk of the plaintiffs' attorneys cases, though, are in the very specific area of doctors filing whistleblower retaliation lawsuits.

Quigley's career went to another level two years ago when client Robert Pedowitz, former chairman of the UCLA orthopedic surgery department, settled for $10 million a whistleblower lawsuit against the Regents of the University of California. Podowitz alleged UC Regents retaliated against him when he blew the whistle about illicit payments the health care industry gave some of his colleagues.

Since then, Quigley has represented doctors in lawsuits against the Regents' Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine.

Quigley represented cancer doctor Ahmad Besaratinia in a two-month jury trial this summer against Beckman Institute of the City of Hope. Besaratinia said he was retaliated against after refusing to fraudulently obtain National Institutes of Health money at his supervisor's request. The case settled for a confidential amount after a jury awarded Besaratinia $1.35 million in compensatory damages and was hung on the amount of punitive damages. Besaratinia v. Beckman Institute of the City of Hope, BC491824 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 10, 2012).

Quigley said not all hospitals are bad actors, but specific hospital networks, namely the UC Regents, have a poor track record. "When I deal with the Regents, they're so big that they can't manage themselves," Quigley said.

— Matthew Blake