A former employee of a prestigious Encino medical firm specializing in plastic surgery has withdrawn her lawsuit, claiming that a doctor from the company kissed her without consent during a dinner outing in 2020.
Jasmine Torres, the plaintiff, initially included Dr. Maxim Benbassat as a defendant in her lawsuit filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court. However, she dropped him from the case on July 25, and recently withdrew the portion of the complaint against Encino Surgical Institute, which conducts business under the name Beverly Hills Physicians.
Both requests to drop the defendants were made “with prejudice,” meaning that the case cannot be refiled. The court documents do not specify whether settlements were reached or if Torres decided to no longer pursue the case for other reasons.
In their court filings, lawyers representing Beverly Hills Physicians and Dr. Benbassat denied Torres’ claims and argued that her lawsuit should be dismissed.
According to the lawsuit, Torres was hired as a surgical technician in March 2019 and primarily worked at the Encino office with occasional shifts at the Thousand Oaks facility. The suit also mentioned that she took one to two months of medical leave during the summer of 2019 to address unrelated mental health issues.
The suit stated that Dr. Benbassat, an anesthesiologist, joined Beverly Hills Physicians in the spring of 2020. He occasionally took some of the surgical technicians and nurses out to eat, including Torres and a nurse, at an Encino restaurant in August 2020.
After paying the bill, Benbassat allegedly “grabbed plaintiff on her arms near her shoulders, pulled her towards him, and kissed plaintiff on the lips,” according to the lawsuit filed on September 9.
Torres was taken aback and took two to three seconds to react. She then pulled away from the kiss and sat in silence for a moment before mentioning that she still had work to do that day and excused herself, as stated in the suit.
According to the lawsuit, Torres informed her supervisor about the incident, and her boss thanked her for the information.
Several days later, Torres confided in a coworker about Benbassat’s alleged actions. The suit stated that a day after that conversation, Torres’ supervisor informed her that “other people were feeling uncomfortable about the story” and asked her not to discuss it further.
Torres agreed to remain silent about the incident, according to the suit.
Despite the alleged forced kiss, Torres was still required to work with Benbassat three to four times a week. The suit claimed that the physician would flirt with her, give her hugs, and make her feel “terribly uncomfortable and anxious.”
Feeling disheartened, plagued by anxiety, and depressed, Torres believed that Beverly Hills Physicians would not take any action to address her complaint against Benbassat. Consequently, she resigned from her position in August 2020, as stated in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit included allegations of assault, battery, wrongful termination, discrimination, retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Torres sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
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