Jury awards $3.7M to woman molested at Atlanta dental clinic

An Atlanta dental clinic was ordered to pay $3.7 million to a woman who was sexually molested by a nurse anesthetist.

The nurse anesthetist, Paul Patrick Serdula, is serving a life sentence in prison following his 2011 conviction, according to a dailyreportonline.com story. He was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, which held the Atlanta dental practice, Goldstein, Garber, & Salama, liable for the assault.

Serdula's crimes were discovered from his penchant for taking selfies while he assaulted at least 19 sedated women. Two more suits are pending against the clinic by Serdula's other victims.

The dental clinic's attorney said he will appeal the verdict, which found the clinic liable for the psychological damage to the young woman, identified only as "J.B." in court filings.

The 18-year-old woman was assaulted by Serdula in 2009; his actions were discovered two months later when a dental clinic employee found a hidden camera under a bathroom sink. A search of Serdula's apartment revealed more than 100 videos of him abusing patients at the clinic, as well as at WellStar Cobb Hospital in Austell, GA, and the Plastic Surgery Center of the South in Marietta, GA, where he had worked as a contract employee.

Five plaintiffs who sued WellStar later settled their claims, and a suit filed by a plastic surgery patient was dismissed.

The patient sued Serdula, the clinic, and dentists David Garber, DDS, and Maurice Salama, DDS, claiming negligent violation of the duty to protect, negligent supervision, professional negligence, and infliction of emotional distress. The suit claimed that Serdula should have never been left alone with J.B. while she was unconscious.

The defense argued the clinic could not have foreseen that Serdula would molest a patient and that he was seldom left alone with a patient for any length of time in the busy operating room.

The claims against Serdula and the dentists were dismissed in 2013, leaving only the clinic as a defendant.