KOCH IS ASSAILED AS BADEN CASE OPENS (Published 1982)
- ️https://www.nytimes.com/by/marcia-chambers
- ️Tue Jun 08 1982
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- June 8, 1982
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Mayor Koch was accused yesterday of dismissing Dr. Michael M. Baden as the city's Chief Medical Examiner three years ago knowing ''that some of the charges against him were untrue.''
The statement was made by Dr. Baden's attorney as the trial began in the doctor's civil suit in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. is hearing the case without a jury. Dr. Baden is seeking several million dollars in damages.
Mr. Koch and Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan District Attorney, are expected to testify. Both have given depositions in the case. Dr. Reinaldo A. Ferrer, the city's Health Commissioner at the time, testified that neither the Mayor nor anyone else had ever asked him ''about the underlying facts of his charges.'' This was so, he said, even though what amounted to a mayoral committee had helped rewrite his statements and had changed some of ''the style and the substance.''
'Duty to Investigate'
Mr. Koch used letters from Mr. Morgenthau and Dr. Ferrer to support his reasons for dismissing Dr. Baden. In his opening statement to the judge, Robert Tannenbaum, Mr. Baden's attorney, said the Mayor ''had a duty to investigate'' the assertions made by Mr. Morgenthau and Dr. Ferrer in their letters. The Mayor, said Mr. Tannenbaum, ''maliciously disseminated the charges against Dr. Baden.''
Doron Gopstein, a lawyer for the city's Corporation Counsel, told the court in his opening statement that the First Amendment of the Constitution protected the Mayor's right to make the charges public. Mr. Gopstein said Dr. Baden was not entitled to monetary damages. He noted that Dr. Baden was currently deputy medical examiner of Suffolk County, and said that the doctor had done well financially as a forensic consultant.
Mr. Tannenbaum contended, however, that Dr. Baden ''will not get a job as a chief medical examiner in any major city in the nation,'' and he asked the judge to use his powers to reinstate him.