Kentucky doc earns $3.5M judgment after seven-year court battle over complaint he was ‘on something’
A doctor in his final year of residency whose career was damaged by a single complaint from a patient who, without evidence, accused him of being on drugs has been awarded a $3.5 million judgment after a seven-year court battle.
John Farmer, Jr., MD, was forced to take his case all the way to the Kentucky Supreme Court, which ultimately sided in his favor on June 25.
The lawsuit stems from an incident on November 4, 2019, when the mother of a patient reported to a hospital administrator at Baptist Health Deaconess Madisonville that Farmer seemed like he was “on something” because he “rubbed his nose a lot.”
This single complaint spiraled out of control, despite a nurse who worked with Farmer telling hospital leadership that all seemed normal. Immediately, he was barred from seeing patients, pending the results of an investigation.
But according to facts laid out in court, an investigation never really took place. Instead, one justice with the Kentucky Supreme Court said that Farmer was simply left with a “proverbial scarlet letter” as a result of the complaint of frequent nose touching.
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Key to the decision of the Kentucky high court was that Baptist Health failed to drug test Farmer on the day of the incident, as well as the day after, instead administering an alcohol-only test days later—a PEth test, which measures phosphatidylethanol levels in the blood. As the justices noted, that was insufficient to discern “whether Dr. Farmer was in fact impaired on November 4, 2019.”
Farmer was further punished by being forced to undergo evaluation through the Kentucky Physicians Health Foundation (KPHF), which placed him into outpatient treatment for alcohol dependency.
This was apparently based almost entirely on a statement from the residency program director who said she believed Farmer had an alcohol abuse problem, citing a DUI conviction he had from 2013 while in medical school.
That fact, which was disclosed to Baptist Health, was compounded by an additional comment the director made to leadership at Baptist Health, where she said Farmer was receiving psychiatric treatment for suicidal ideation.
According to coverage from WAVE 3, that psychiatrist would later go on to testify that this was not true.
All the same, because of the PEth test that showed Farmer had consumed alcohol at some undetermined time and location, that was ostensibly enough to justify pushing him into a treatment program, which had the downstream effect of leaving the new doctor in a five-year monitoring agreement with the Kentucky Medical Board, should he wish to keep his license.
This, Farmer argued, was a major setback to his career, as was the time lost not being able to see patients while in treatment.
When the first trial stemming from his lawsuit ended in 2023, Farmer was awarded a $3.5 million judgment, which has now been restored by the Kentucky Supreme Court.
That ruling will serve to protect doctors who are wrongfully accused of impairment in the future, lawyers representing Farmer said.
For more on this case, including details on the back-and-forth court process and the Kentucky Supreme Court’s dissenting opinion, read WAVE 3’s coverage by clicking here.
Chad is an award-winning writer and editor with over 15 years of experience working in media. He has a decade-long professional background in healthcare, working as a writer and in public relations.