The $15 million jury award to a male former Rothman surgeon against Jefferson in a sex discrimination case is the largest ever

A federal jury in Philadelphia made history last week when it awarded $15 million to a male former professor who sued Thomas Jefferson University for gender discrimination in a sexual assault investigation.

Orthopedic surgeon John Abraham’s victory marked the largest-ever verdict under Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination at schools that receive federal funding. It was also the first time a male professor, accused by a female subordinate, won his case against a university at trial, legal experts say.

“The case was highly, highly unusual and the verdict was very dramatic,” said KC Johnson, a Title IX expert who teaches history at Brooklyn College.

The 1972 law faced a rare courtroom test during the five-day trial in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia. A jury found that Jefferson failed to impartially investigate a powerful man’s claim that he was also a victim in an alcohol-fueled encounter in which he was accused of rape.

The verdict sent a message to university leaders to take seriously — and equally investigate — a male’s allegations of sexual assault by a female, experts say, regardless of any power dynamic between a professor and a student.

Jefferson is considering an appeal. A spokesperson said the university “continues to believe Jefferson treated both parties fairly and equitably.”

The jury, which had collectively dubbed itself “Team Justice,” took only an hour to decide otherwise. “We felt he was wronged. His whole life was ruined,” juror William Mapstone told The Inquirer this week.

Legal observers said Abraham’s case also tested the limits of the #MeToo movement, which at the time of Jefferson’s Title IX investigation into Abraham had gripped the nation with calls to better support women reporting sexual abuse. Abraham, then a partner at Rothman Orthopaedic Institute, was not charged criminally in the 2018 sexual encounter during a pool party at his Main Line home.

Two days after the Dec. 11 jury award, a news release with a headline saying the verdict “Signals Fall of ‘Believe Women’ Movement” was circulated by a Maryland-based nonprofit called SAVE. The group, whose name stands for Stop Abusive and Violent Environments, has advocated for men accused of sexual misconduct on college campuses.

“How can you possibly do an impartial investigation if you are starting out saying, ‘I’m just going to accept as fact everything the accuser says?’” said the group’s president, Edward Bartlett, a former professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

In Abraham’s win, however, advocates for female survivors of sexual abuse expressed fear that the case underscores a disturbing trend in which wealthy men accused of sexual misconduct use civil courts to humiliate and undermine their accusers. The case, they feared, could serve as a road map.

“These defensive moves are honestly brilliant tactics to cause survivors to go back in their shell,” said Judie Saunders, a partner at a Manhattan-based law firm, ASK LLP, and head of its sexual abuse and human trafficking department.

Abraham’s trial was one of only seven nationwide in which a man accused of sexual misconduct has ended up before a federal jury in the past 12 years.

In all, 515 federal lawsuits have been filed during this time, mostly by male students claiming unfair treatment by colleges and universities. The legal onslaught followed an increase in Title IX cases after the Obama administration warned universities in 2011 that they could lose federal funding if they failed to eliminate sexual harassment and violence on their campuses. About 30 professors, nearly all men accused by women, have sued in state or federal courts, according to Johnson, the Brooklyn College professor.

Abraham’s case stemmed from a June 2018 party he hosted at his Gladwyne home for Jefferson’s orthopedic medical residents and hospital staff. A second-year female medical resident said she woke up in his bed covered in bruises, and accused him of raping her while she was intoxicated.

Abraham accused her of forcing herself on him after she plied him with alcohol. Both said they were too drunk to consent.

Jefferson paid a private law firm about $97,000 to investigate, and the resulting 58-page report drew no conclusion on whether a rape occurred.

Zoe Gingold, Jefferson’s then-Title IX coordinator, decided there was enough evidence against Abraham to merit a hearing. But leaders at Jefferson and Rothman quietly brokered his resignation in exchange for closing the case without a hearing.

Rothman and Jefferson are separate entities, but many of Rothman’s partners serve in top university jobs and train Jefferson’s orthopedic residents.

In an interview with The Inquirer earlier this year, the former medical resident, Jessica Phillips, said she felt abandoned by Jefferson. Phillips said the university closed the case in January 2019 without consulting her, and she now understands why victims don’t come forward. The lack of closure left her feeling unheard and ultimately empowered Abraham, she said.

Abraham subsequently sued Phillips for defamation and libel in state court. She countersued for assault and battery. That case settled in May of this year, with neither side winning monetary damages.

In June 2020, Abraham sued Jefferson in federal court, claiming the university only investigated the medical resident’s allegations and failed to investigate his accusations against her.

Phillips was not a party to Abraham’s federal Title IX lawsuit and did not testify.

Over the five-day trial this month, Abraham testified for hours, at times crying.

He told jurors that Jefferson and Rothman’s leaders warned him that he stood no chance at a Title IX hearing — no one would believe that a woman forced him to have sex.

At the time of Jefferson’s Title IX investigation, the #MeToo social movement was energized, Abraham testified. Thousands of demonstrators marched in solidarity with survivors of sexual abuse, harassment, and rape.

“If I’m sitting in my house watching the TV with people walking down the streets with signs that say, ‘Believe Her,’ and I’m being told that it doesn’t matter what the facts are because you’re not going to survive a hearing,” Abraham said in court, “what is my choice to do?”

He had no choice but to resign — or risk being reported to a national data bank that tracks doctor sexual misconduct, he said.

After deliberating over a single lunch hour, the jury of five women and three men found Jefferson had conducted a gender-biased investigation.

“Nobody had a second thought,” juror William Mapstone said. “We completely believed his side of the story.”

Jefferson’s lawyers argued that they had to investigate Phillips’ rape allegations, especially given the teacher-student power imbalance. Abraham knew it was wrong for an attending doctor to have sex with a medical resident and lied to cover for it, they said.

Abraham turned the argument around to support his claims of unequal treatment.

“When she walked into the party, I absolutely knew that it was wrong,” Abraham said in his testimony. “I stated that to her directly three times — ‘This is wrong. We can’t do this. This is not right.’ She went ahead and poured alcohol into my drinks and even poured alcohol directly into my mouth.”

Mapstone said jurors agreed that alcohol impaired his judgment and she “kind of coerced him.”

James Purtill, the residency program director for Rothman and Jefferson, testified that Phillips called him in tears and said she woke up in Abraham’s house naked, her body bruised, with no memory of details.

“I was very concerned that it was nonconsensual,” Purtill told jurors.

Purtill said Abraham tried to contact him, but he didn’t call him back because he had already heard from Rothman’s president, who was Abraham’s direct supervisor, that he “had confessed.”

Mapstone said Purtill’s testimony revealed his bias.

“It was our opinion that his mind was made up,” Mapstone said.

The jury awarded Abraham $11 million to compensate him for financial losses and an additional $4 million in punitive damages.

In arriving at the $15 million, Mapstone said jurors added up Abraham’s financial losses, both in actual income and potential earnings, since 2018. Abraham had earned nearly $1.6 million in 2017.

Mapstone said their verdict was reasonable. Many had felt that Abraham’s lawyers were going for “lottery kind of money,” and jurors agreed that wasn’t going to happen.

A 55-year-old chef from outside Philadelphia, Mapstone said the eight-member jury panel included a college student and a car salesperson. They stay in touch through a text string, which they named “Team Justice,” he said.

All felt bad for Abraham, as he described feeling isolated in his nine-bedroom home with a pool on four acres in the months after the party.

“It’s just a gilded prison,” Mapstone said. “We threw in a million for his mental psyche.”

On Monday, Abraham’s lawyer, Lane Jubb Jr., filed a motion for $591,616 in attorneys’ fees on top of the $15 million, court records show.

Title IX experts said the case revealed Jefferson’s closed-door dealings and attempts to quiet a scandal rather than find the truth.

“It shows a serious callousness,” said Samantha Harris, a Philadelphia-area lawyer who handles Title IX cases.

During the trial, Jefferson’s hospital and university leaders testified that they did their best to be fair and transparent with both sides.

Harris listened to parts of the trial in preparation for a federal trial she has next month in Texas, where she’s representing a male student.

But she said she doesn’t expect to get $15 million for her client if she wins.

Abraham, unlike a student, was a well-paid orthopedic oncology surgeon and was able to show financial losses.

“In legal circles, I don’t think anyone looked at it like, ‘Oh wow, we can get $15 million for our clients, too,’” Harris said. “The focus was more, ‘Oh my goodness, there was a jury trial in which a jury found that this university had discriminated against this guy.’”