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Did plaintiff get bum deal in rectal-exam ruling?

NEW YORK - A hospital did nothing wrong when it tried to examine the rectum of a construction worker who had been hit on the head by a falling wooden beam, a jury has found.

NEW YORK - A hospital did nothing wrong when it tried to examine the rectum of a construction worker who had been hit on the head by a falling wooden beam, a jury has found.

The state Supreme Court jury awarded nothing to Brian Persaud, who had sued NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. The panel, after deliberating a little more than an hour yesterday, found no liability on the part of the hospital or its emergency-room medical staff.

Persaud's attorneys, Gerard Marrone and Gary DeFilippo, said they believe that they have grounds for an appeal.

The hospital's attorney, Jeffrey Lawton, declined comment as he left the Manhattan court.

Persaud, sitting on a bench outside the courtroom, appeared dejected.

Marrone said his client, 38, was injured while working at a construction site in midtown Manhattan on May 20, 2003. At NewYork-Presbyterian, he said, Persaud got eight stitches for a cut over his eyebrow.

Meanwhile, Marrone said, Persaud denied emergency-room staffers' request to examine his rectum. The lawyer said doctors had told him the exam was a way of determining whether the accident caused spinal damage.

When Persaud resisted, the staffers held him down while he begged, "Please don't do that," Marrone said. Persaud hit a doctor while flailing around, so the staffers gave him a powerful sedative and performed the rectal exam, he said.

Hospital witnesses testified at trial that the exam had never been completed, but Marrone said that when Persaud woke up he was handcuffed to a bed and had an oxygen tube down his throat and lubricant in his rectum.

DeFilippo said , "He resisted because he didn't know what they were doing. Once he said he didn't want the rectal exam, everything should have stopped."

He said he believes that the rectal exam was done as retaliation because his panicked client hit the doctor.

A judge dismissed a misdemeanor assault charge that was filed against Persaud because he hit the doctor.

DeFilippo said his client, who is unmarried and lives in Brooklyn, is unemployed and has been unable to hold a job since the incident. *