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Dr. David Jacoby, the medical school dean who was demoted amid the institution’s response to an alleged case of photo voyeurism, sued Oregon Health & Science University for $6.2 million today.
OHSU unfairly pinned blame on him for how it handled the dismissal of a doctor accused by a female student of taking upskirt photos during a class, Jacoby says in a 48-page complaint filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
The doctor, Daniel Marks, collected a $46,000 bonus just before his departure, drawing the ire of OHSU’s employees after it became public. President Danny Jacobs and his senior staff claimed Jacoby had authorized the payment, placing blame with him alone. In fact, the bonus was approved by Jacobs and members of his senior staff, Jacoby says in his suit.
“OHSU’s most senior leadership made knowingly false and misleading statements, including to the media, to deflect blame and create the false impression that plaintiff was primarily responsible for (1) OHSU’s failure for more than one year to appropriately respond to complaints of misconduct by a faculty member and (2) awarding that disgraced faculty member a large bonus in the final days of his employment,” Jacoby says in the complaint.
Jacoby is suing OHSU for defamation, retaliation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. He seeks $2.2 million in economic damages and $4 million for humiliation, emotional distress, and injury to his reputation.
A OHSU spokeswoman said the institution can’t comment on pending litigation.
Jacoby’s complaint relies in large part on an April report on the Marks matter prepared by Schneider Education & Employment Law at the behest of the school’s board of directors. Investigator Scott Schneider determined that OHSU’s top executives had provided inaccurate information about Marks to the National Institutes of Health and to The Oregonian.
Jacobs also “unfairly pinned too much of the blame” for the scandal on Jacoby, Schneider said, describing an apparent effort to dispel further scrutiny of his administration’s failures.
“When the press reported that OHSU awarded a large bonus to Dr. Marks days before his resignation, OHSU senior leadership falsely claimed that plaintiff was to blame for awarding Dr. Marks the bonus when OHSU knew that, in fact, plaintiff had no role whatsoever in making any judgment about payment of the bonus to Dr. Marks,” Jacoby says in his suit.
In addition to OHSU, Jacoby names former human resources head Qiana Williams as a defendant in his suit, saying she lied in order to pin blame on him for awarding Marks the bonus.
According to the Schneider report, Williams claimed to have met with Jacoby one-on-one on Oct. 11 and told him that she had sought to prevent Marks from receiving the bonus because of his behavior. Jacoby denied that the conversation ever took place. Schneider sided with Jacoby on the matter, writing “that the preponderance of evidence supports Dr. Jacoby’s account.”
“There is scant evidence (outside of Williams’ assertion) that such a meeting between Williams and Dr. Jacoby about the award took place,” the Schneider report says. “There is no email discussing this purported meeting about the award with Dr. Jacoby or contemporary calendar invite for the meeting. The pair had a recurring meeting which occurred on the second Wednesday of every month, and on October 11, 2023, the best documentary evidence the firm has is that their meeting lasted approximately less than three minutes.”
According to Schneider, Williams drafted a statement that OHSU released to The Oregonian claiming that Jacoby had the discretion to withhold the bonus payment from Marks and implying that the bonus was paid to Marks as a result of a decision by Jacoby.
“On Jan.29, 2024, The Oregonian published an article quoting OHSU’s false and misleading assertion, that, in contrast to Dr. Jacoby’s assertion, ‘all leaders had discretion and were responsible for determining who on their staff was eligible for the bonus, which included adding or removing leaders as determined appropriate,’” Jacoby’s complaint says.
Williams was ousted from OHSU in June. The university said she had decided to “transition from her role.” Williams will continue to collect her $550,000 salary until June 2025 unless she finds another job, according to her separation agreement.
Williams didn’t immediately return a message sent to her via LinkedIn.
“Despite OHSU’s investigator’s conclusion that defendant Williams lied to the media and to OHSU’s investigator about Dr. Jacoby’s involvement in the bonus, upon receipt of the investigator’s report in April 2024 setting out that conclusion in detail, President Jacobs did not fire Defendant Williams,” Jacoby says in his complaint.
Rather, Jacobs approved the generous severance for Williams, Jacoby says. In a statement at the time, Jacobs thanked Williams for her “commitment to the well-being and advancement of the OHSU community.”