Phillips vs Brown, 1979 - a trans patient sues

Phillips, who then had a different name, grew up in Pennsylvania, where he was raped by his father and others, and placed in foster homes from age 13.

After moving to California, she met John Phillips, and, she living as female, they were married in Nevada in 1970, where she became Mrs Phillips.

February 2-4, 1973, was the occasion of the Second Interdisciplinary Symposium on Gender Dysphoria Syndrome sponsored by the Divisions of Urology and Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the Stanford School of Medicine. A highlight was Dr Georges Burou‘s presentation of his techniques; John Brown made a presentation, which was also well received, doctors at that time not being aware of the idiosyncrasies of his practices. Vern Bullough later commented: “the case of John Brown, whom Zelda Suplee, my wife Bonnie, and myself at least halfway encouraged to do transsexual surgery, a recommendation we quickly regretted”.

In October Brown’s work was mentioned sarcastically in Herb Caen’s column in the San Francisco Chronicle.

John Brown had set up business as a doctor-surgeon in San Francisco. His assistant was James Spence who had served time for fraud in San Quentin, and had no medical training. He was mainly responsible for the business aspects of the practice.

Word of mouth in San Francisco’s gay community told Julie about Dr Brown. She was considering breast implants as a Christmas present for her husband.

Julie Phillips approached Brown and Spence about breast implants, and they, assuring her that she would be a ‘perfect woman’, talked her into three operations: breast enlargement, castration and then vaginoplasty, which were done December 1973-January 1974. They charged her $5,000 (approximately $36,000 today). This was one of Brown’s first vaginoplasties; he was assisted by Spence. Brown at this point did not have enough surgical experience and he certainly did not have operating room privileges. Brown also used her once to assist in a nose-reconstruction operation on another patient.

The vaginoplasty led to pain and infection, and she sought help at Stanford Hospital. She was working as a waitress when she filed a civil suit in July 1977.

Brown’s California medical license was revoked in December 1977 on a recommendation from the Board of Medical Quality Assurance. He was accused of violating medical standards, employing patients as medical assistants, and performing sex-change operations ‘on-demand’ without psychological evaluations. He was also found guilty of gross negligence in the cases of Mrs Phillips and three others.

 Later Brown began practicing in Mexico.

In February 1979 Phillips’ case came to court. She was suing for $5 million in punitive damages and $2 million in general damages ($7 million then is about $30 million today). The jury was of eight men and four women. Phillips was represented by the noted lawyer, Melvin Belli, who specialized in medical malpractice cases. Brown had engaged noted young lawyer Duncan Barr.

Julie

Belli described his client as a “homosexual male” who had been in a happy union with John Phillips. However, Brown’s surgery led to her suffering “profound and permanent physical and psychological injuries and damages and irreparable injury to her relationship”. He claimed that tests had found that Phillips was “psychotic and feeble-minded and can’t truly give any consent”. Brown was said to have separated the castration and vaginoplasty by a few weeks, not for medical reasons, but to defraud insurance companies which would not pay for sex-change operations.

Defense attorney, Barr, replied that Phillips had wanted a sex-change operation for years and “got it because she wanted it”, and had cancelled corrective surgery at Stanford because of the lawsuit.

Phillips wept on the stand as she described her life after Brown’s surgery. Under cross-examination she testified that she was confused after the unsuccessful operation and was afraid of undergoing another one. “I’m not ready. My doctor says I’m not mentally ready. I’m scared of the table. If you had someone cut you up the way they experimented with me, you’d be afraid too.” She said that the operation had left her neither male nor female.

Brown testified, under sharp questioning by Belli, that he was inexperienced “in the development stages” when he operated on Phillips.

Spence told the jury that the case was a farce, in that he had set it up to expose John Brown. Brown and Spence had fallen out in 1973. Spence’s wife Janie testified that she had helped talk Phillips into filing the lawsuit.

Psychiatrist Kathleen Unger testified that the patient would be a mental cripple for the rest of her life.

After Unger’s testimony, the parties settled out-of-court for significantly less than $7 million. The trial had lasted 3½ days. The judge approved the settlement – although the amount of compensation was not revealed.

Belli said that it was “enough for psychiatric care help for the rest of Julie’s life and a new operation”

– which was later performed at Stanford Hospital. 

Barr said that the settlement was well below $1 million. He also said that his client was adamant that he had done nothing wrong.

After the trial Brown was arrested and jailed on a complaint by the state Department of Consumer Affairs on 12 counts of issuing prescriptions in Los Angeles without a license and three warrants for traffic citations. Bail was set at $25,000.

* Not Julie Phillips the actress active in the 1970s and 1980s, nor the writer who wrote a biography of Alice Sheldon/James Tiptree Jr.

• Herb Caen. “Plastic, Cosmetic and Reconstructive Surgery”. San Francisco Chronicle, 26 October 1973.
• Jack Schreibman. “Sex change ‘neuter‘ suing“. Associated Press, Feb 21, 1979.
• “$7 million sought in sex change trial”. San Francisco Examiner, Feb 21, 1979.
• “Sex change operation a failure”. Associated Press, Feb 21, 1979.
• “Woman claims sex-change operation left her neuter”. Associated Press, Feb 22, 1979.
• “Sex change suit: Belli calls client ‘boy’ and ‘freak’ ”. San Francisco Examiner, Feb 28, 1979.
• “Sex change Medic Slated to Testify in his defense”. Santa Cruz Sentinel, Feb 28, 1979
• “Doctor Defends Decision to Perfoem Sex Change”. Los Angeles Times, Mar 1, 1979.
• “Witness in sex change cas admits she lied”. Camarillo Star, Mar 1, 1979.
• “Sex-Change Doctor Admits His and Aide’s, Inability. Sacramento Bee, March 1, 1979
• “Transsexual Accepts Suit Settlement”. San Diego Union, March 2, 1979. Online.
• “Case Settled in Sex Change”. The Town Talk, Mar 3, 1979.

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Melvin Belli’s clients included Mae West, Errol Flynn, Lenny Bruce, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Muhammad Ali, Jim Bakker, Sirhan Sirhan, Jack Ruby. He specialised in representing individuals in personal injury cases and in raising personal injury awards to then-unprecedented heights that earned him the title of “The King of Torts” by Life Magazine writer Robert Wallace in a 1954 profile. 

None of the newspaper accounts said so, but I assume that Belli was working on a no-win, no-fee basis.

Duncan Barr was the youngest person (32) ever to join the American Board of Trial Advocates. He became notorious in the 1980s when he defended a blood bank against hemophiliacs who had cought AIDS through blood transfusions.