A jury on Friday ordered a Santa Ana hospital chain to pay a doctor $5.2 million for its role in a planted-gun case.

Dr. Michael Fitzgibbons had claimed the former head of Integrated Healthcare Holdings Inc., the owner of four central county hospitals, had set him up for arrest on a gun charge in June 2006.

The jury returned the verdict after less than five hours of deliberation. It will return next week to determine punitive damages.

The infectious disease specialist was arrested and handcuffed in the employee parking lot at Western Medical Center – Santa Ana after police found a handgun and a pair of black gloves in his car. Police questioned him and searched his car after receiving two anonymous 911 calls claiming that a man driving Fitzgibbons’ car had waved a gun in traffic.

Fitzgibbons denied owning the gun. DNA testing of the gloves and the gun excluded him. He was never prosecuted.

The arrest followed a series of clashes between Fitzgibbons, the former chief of staff at WestMed, and the corporate leadership of IHHI, which had bought WestMed and three other hospitals in March 2005.

“This was an attempt to murder my client’s career,” Fitzgibbons’ attorney, Ted Mathews, told the jury during closing arguments on Thursday.

Mathews focused on the actions of former IHHI chief executive Bruce Mogel. Mathews said Mogel set out to “humble” Fitzgibbons after the doctor won a legal victory over the hospital chain in mid-June 2006.

Former IHHI president Larry Anderson testified that immediately after Fitzgibbons’ legal win, Mogel instructed him to make a $10,000 contract for unnecessary work on IHHI’s website with a man named Mikey Delgado. Delgado had come up in prior conversations, Anderson testified, as a “scary guy” who Mogel told him had the Santa Ana police on his payroll.

“So what did IHHI get for that $10,000?” Mathews asked the jury. “They got Dr. Fitz set up.”

Anderson testified that it was only after Fitzgibbons’ arrest that he realized that the $10,000 contract must have paid for the planted gun.

IHHI’s board learned of the $10,000 payment after Anderson described it in a 2008 deposition. But instead of firing Mogel, Mathews said, the board gave him an eight-month consultancy worth $43,750 per month.

The IHHI board “knew what Mogel did to Dr. Fitzgibbons,” Mathews told the jury. “They ratified it, and they gave him a golden handshake goodbye.”

The jury apparently agreed. On the verdict form, the jury marked yes to the final question, which asked whether “IHHI acted with malice, oppression or fraud against Dr. Fitzgibbons.”

That “yes” set the stage for a mini-trial next week on punitive damages. It could substantially boost or even multiply the $5.2 million the jury has already awarded to Fitzgibbons for infliction of emotional distress.

David Robinson, the hospital chain’s attorney, told the jury that IHHI was the real victim – first of Fitzgibbons, who continually tried to sabotage IHHI after his own bid to buy WestMed failed – and second of the team of Mogel and Anderson.

“The company was very happy to get rid of both of them,” Robinson told the jury, speaking of IHHI’s former chief executive and president. “Some trash had to be taken out.”

He said IHHI should not be blamed for anything Mogel might have done to Fitzgibbons. True, the board paid Mogel to go away, but it paid him less than his contract required.

What’s more, he told the jury, Anderson was a liar.

In a 2008 deposition Anderson said that he and Mogel had watched Fitzgibbons’ arrest from a window inside WestMed. Mogel, Anderson testified in that deposition, had stood, arms folded, and said, “People don’t know how powerful I am.”

But when the outraged IHHI board learned of the deposition and investigated, a key element of Anderson’s story fell apart. Mogel had been in Florida attending his daughter’s soccer tournament on the day of Fitzgibbons’ arrest. He could not have witnessed the doctor’s arrest.

Anderson said he had been confused after two years and that Mogel had really made his remark about how powerful he was in July, days after the doctor’s arrest.

Mathews, in his summary to the jury, treated that admission as an honest mistake, the result of the passage of time.

Robinson mocked it, pointing out that Anderson had somehow remembered not only Mogel’s posture but even the clothes Mogel was wearing when he told his first version.

In a statement issued hours after the verdict, IHHI Chief Executive Ken Westbrook said, “The individuals alleged to have wronged Dr. Fitzgibbbons left the company years ago and, as was clearly established at trial, the alleged acts were not disclosed to anyone else at IHHI at the time. This case is ongoing and IHHI remains confident of a just outcome.”

We’ll let you know if punitive damages are added.

Contact the writer: 714-796-5030 or rcampbell@ocregister.com