Twin doctors' case to be tried

A Pierce County judge erred when she dismissed a woman's accusations that she had been sexually assaulted by physician Dennis Momah and ordered her to pay nearly $3 million in damages, the state Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.

The three-judge appeals panel said the case of Perla Saldivar and her husband, Albert, against Momah and his twin brother, Charles, also a physician, should have been allowed to move forward. The appellate court ordered the case sent back to Pierce County Superior Court to be tried.

In May 2006, Judge Katherine Stolz ordered Saldivar — who accused Dennis Momah of touching her sexually and allowing his identical twin brother, Charles Momah, to impersonate him during visits to a Puyallup health clinic — to pay Dennis Momah $2.8 million because she fabricated her story.

Charles Momah was convicted in King County in 2005 of rape and indecent liberties with former patients and is serving a 20-year sentence. Dennis Momah has never been criminally charged.

In her blistering 2006 ruling, Stolz accused the Saldivars' attorney, Harish Bharti, of knowingly bringing forth false claims and slapped him with one of the most severe sanctions ever given to a Washington lawyer. Stolz ordered Bharti to pay more than $300,000 in fines and post her strongly worded opinion on his Web site.

Legal observers at the time said the sanction was one of the harshest against a Washington attorney.

On Tuesday the appellate court overturned much of Stolz's ruling.

In their opinion, the appeals judges said Stolz should have allowed much of the evidence she dismissed from the case, including a social worker's mental-health evaluation of Perla Saldivar and Saldivar's statements to friends and family at the time of the alleged abuse.

Much of the $2.8 million judgment against the Saldivars, which stemmed from a counterclaim filed by Dennis Momah alleging defamation, was tossed out by the new ruling.

"This was a long time coming," said Howard Goodfriend, attorney for the Saldivars and Bharti, who argued the case in September before the Court of Appeals. The Saldivars, who filed for bankruptcy after Stolz's judgment, "were at the end of the rope. Hopefully, this gives them a clean start," Goodfriend said.

The appeals judges also found that the court sanctions imposed against the Ballard-based Bharti, who Stolz said filed "irrelevant and salacious declarations" that he knew were false, were inappropriate and that the lawsuit's filing was not improper.

"It says if a lawyer makes a reasonable investigation and their client's allegations are supported by corroborative evidence, the attorney has done his ethical duty," Goodfriend said. "This is very important for lawyers."

Attorneys for the Momahs and U.S. Healthworks Medical Group of Washington, which owned the clinic, did not return calls for comment. Bharti also could not be reached for comment.

The appeals judges also found that Stolz should have allowed evidence supporting the Saldivars' accusation of impersonation — specifically testimony by other former patients of the Momahs — into the case.

They ruled in favor of the Momahs on several lesser points, including supporting the opinion that Bharti failed to follow the proper legal procedure to obtain a jury trial and that Stolz properly excluded some evidence.

The Saldivar case was just one in a tangled web of legal battles over allegations against the Momah brothers.

Since 2003, Bharti — sometimes in partnership with other attorneys, sometimes alone — has filed dozens of lawsuits against the Momahs, publicly outlining an identity-switching scheme he says was carried out by the twins. He has spoken nationally, including on television, against the doctors.

Some cases against the brothers were settled, and others were dropped or dismissed.

In 2006, around the time of the Stolz opinion, Bharti dropped all his pending civil cases against Dennis Momah.

In November, a King County jury awarded more than $2.2 million to three women who said they were sexually abused by Charles Momah.

Natalie Singer: 206-464-2704 or nsinger@seattletimes.com