She didn’t stand by her man and it cost her a cool million bucks.
A Manhattan judge nixed the $1 million share of a $4.8 million jury verdict to the ex-wife of a man misdiagnosed by a neurologist because she bailed on their marriage when things got rough.
Justice Geoffrey Wright said Zaida Wyble, 48, didn’t deserve the seven-figure award because she “left the marriage when the going got tough.”
Former Mt. Sinai doctor Dale J. Lange appealed the entire verdict last March, but Wright said injured hubby Robert Wyble, 51, could hold on to his $3.8 million.
The Orange County, NY, landscaper was “subjected to major and apparently unnecessary surgery, as well as the administration of an unnecessary drug regimen, which led to significant weight gain, and compromised immune system,” Wright wrote in the decision released Tuesday.
But for Zaida, an insurance broker who split from her spouse shortly after he filed the malpractice suit in 2010, a million-dollar sum is “clearly excessive,” Wright ruled. Spouses are typically awarded “loss of services” in injury cases.
The term encompasses hardships ranging from lack of a sex life to the inability to perform household chores.
Robert, of Pine Island, NY, was originally told he had a severe neuromuscular disease called myasthenia gravis by Dr. Lange, but he was actually suffering from something called cataplexy which is easily treated with medication.
Lange is now the chief neurologist at the Hospital for Special Surgery on the Upper East Side.
Wright noted that Robert was only awarded $1.5 million for future pain and suffering, which if spread out over the rest of his life would be less than the $1 million his estranged spouse got for the six and a half years she stayed with him after the medical mishap.
The judge told Zaida to accept a $100,000 payout or submit to a new trial on her loss of services claim.
Calls to parties were not immediately returned.