Judge to decide if ex-West Linn doctor must answer questions in sex abuse lawsuit

Attorneys for more than 150

women and children suing

former West Linn doctor David B. Farley on

allegations of sexual abuse

are urging a judge to compel him to answer specific questions as part of his deposition.

Farley, who has not been criminally charged, repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right during a Sept. 11, 2024, civil deposition by his accusers’ attorneys in Portland. His civil attorney and criminal defense lawyers were present for the deposition.

The pending

civil lawsuit

alleges that Farley spent decades using his position as a trusted physician to sexually assault countless girls and women under the guise of providing medical care at the West Linn Family Health Center that he opened in 1989.

The lawyers for the women and children argue that Farley failed to answer basic questions on his background, personal education and employment history including hospital privileges, the business structure of the West Linn Family Health Center where he worked, the center’s policies and procedures and his involvement in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They want a judge to order him to sit for a second deposition session and respond to their questions.

“Farley declined to answer a single question, each time improperly involving the Fifth Amendment,” wrote lawyer Courtney Thom, one of the lawyers representing the women and children. “This is a textbook misuse of the Fifth Amendment.”

Thom argued that allowing Farley to “shield” basic facts “under the guise of constitutional protection” would prejudice her clients’ ability to obtain critical information to pursue their claims of assault, battery, negligence and negligent supervision against Farley and the West Linn health center.

Farley’s lawyer Scott T. Schauermann has countered that “potential criminal jeopardy” to Farley is “very real,” and accused the civil lawyers of trying to seek an “end-run” around an ongoing criminal investigation.

“The criminal investigation is continuing, all with the insistence and help of plaintiff’s counsel,” Schauermann argued in court papers.

Thom, one of the lawyers for the women and children, is a former sex crimes prosecutor who recently wrote an article on how civil attorneys should collaborate with prosecutors in sex abuse cases to get better results, according to Schauermann. He submitted a copy of the article titled, “Marsy’s Law: Coordinating Civil and Criminal Actions in Sexual Abuse Cases,” to the court. The article, which ran in a Consumer Attorneys of California publication, is about a California victims’ bill of rights law and how parallel civil suits and criminal investigations can be beneficial to a survivor of abuse and how attorneys from both realms can work together.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Benjamin Souede has set a 3:30 p.m. hearing Wednesday afternoon to consider the motion to compel Farley’s testimony.

The suit alleges that Farley, now 66, used his position as a doctor with the West Linn Family Health Center and position of trust to coerce patients — many of whom were fellow members of the Morman church — to “concede to his prurient sexual demands,” Thom wrote in a recent court motion.

What started with a handful of women filing suit has grown to more than 100 former patients who have alleged Farley sexually assaulted them during exams, according to court records. They’ve alleged he cut his patients’ hymens, photographed patients’ breasts and genitalia on his personal cellphone and insisted on frequent and unnecessary ungloved breast and pelvic exams.

In October 2020, the Oregon Medical Board revoked Farley’s medical license and issued a $20,000 civil penalty against Farley for unprofessional conduct and repeated negligence.

Farley admitted to taking photos of the genitals and breasts of five patients, all under 18, according to board records. He claimed he provided consent forms for the minors’ parents to sign but could not provide the records. Farley said he deleted the photos from his phone and shredded the consent forms, according to board documents.

In September 2022, a Clackamas County grand jury that heard from 41 witnesses

found insufficient evidence

to prove the alleged sexual abuse and misconduct by Farley, according to the Clackamas County District Attorney’s Office.

That same month, attorneys for the women suing both Farley and the West Linn clinic where he worked sent a scathing letter to then-Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, alleging that the lead police detective, Tony Christensen, “botched” the investigation due to his incompetence and “dismissive and combative posture.” An outside consultant hired by West Linn last year concluded that

Christensen was not qualified

to do such investigations and lacked basic knowledge of medical and legal issues involved.

In December, after a Clackamas County grand jury declined to return an indictment against Farley and facing criticism from the alleged victims,

District Attorney John Wentworth asked the state Department of Justice

to take over a criminal investigation into Farley for potential prosecution.

The Oregon Department of Justice began a review of the case following the grand jury’s decision and that review is continuing, agency spokesperson Jenny Hansson said Tuesday.

Farley’s attorneys, Jacob Houze and Stephen Houze, have said in a prior statement that there’s no basis to charge Farley with any crime.

In Farley’s civil deposition last September, he refused to provide his current marital status and names of his family members, what privileges he held at Providence and Legacy hospitals while working in Oregon as a physician.

He also refused to answer questions about who served as supervisors in the West Linn health center, the ownership and operation of the center, the names of other employees, average number of patients seen, number of exam rooms, whether chaperones were used in exam rooms or whether there was any chaperone policy for exams or mandatory reporting policy regarding sexual abuse allegations.

Farley also refused to answer what ward of the Mormon church he attended, positions he held and whether the church referred patients to him, according to a transcript of the deposition.

The court must determine whether Farley’s answer to a particular question in the deposition would subject him “to a real danger of incrimination,” or a “mere imaginary possibility of increasing the danger of prosecution,” according to the plaintiffs’ lawyers.

It should be invoked on a “question-by-question basis,” Thom contends.

While Farley justifiably can assert his Fifth Amendmen right against answering questions related to alleged sexual abuse, he shouldn’t be allowed to duck questions related to his work history, the ownership of the West Linn clinic and partnership with other owners, she argued in court papers.

“Defendant Farley made a blanket assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege to virtually all questions asked of him at his deposition,” Thom wrote.

She said the court must have Farley explain how these “clearly innocuous questions, under any possible interpretation, could elicit an incriminating response.”

The September civil deposition of Farley went forward despite the fact that his lawyers had informed the plaintiffs’ attorneys of his intention to assert his Fifth Amendment privilege. He answered some early questions — about his name, date of birth and the state where he now lives — but invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination for all other questions, said Schauermann, his lawyer.

Farley moved to Idaho after leaving the West Linn Family Health Center and sending a retirement letter to his patients in August 2020, failing to mention he was under board investigation at the time. After the civil suit was first filed in 2020, his lawyer sought a hold on it, pending the outcome of the West Linn criminal investigation. But no hold was granted. Farley now lives in Utah.

On West Linn Family Health Center letterhead, David B. Farley on Aug. 12,2020, wrote to patients he was retiring due to “personal circumstances.” No one told patients he was under investigation by the Oregon Medical Board for unprofessional care and gross negligence.

In a redacted 184-page transcript from the September deposition, Thom alleged Farley saw one of the victims in the Salt Lake City airport the night before the deposition and “followed her through the airport,” prompting her to get help from four or five Delta Airlines employees to stop his pursuit of her. Four of the alleged victims accusing Farley attended his deposition, the transcript shows.

Thom, in her questions that day, said Farley took nude photographs of children during his exams and sexually abused them while fooling them into believing his actions had some medical purpose. She suggested that he used a woman’s cellphone to take photos of patients and the woman reported him to others at the clinic, the transcript shows. In her questioning, she also suggested that the clinic tried to adopt a chaperone policy back in 2018 for certain exams but failed to do so.

Farley’s lawyers cited a different standard for the court to decide whether or not to compel their client to answer deposition questions. It has to be “perfectly clear” to the court that an answer posed “cannot possibly” tend to incriminate a witness before compelling Farley to answer any question, Schauermann argues.

“Where a witness is the subject of a current criminal investigation, as is the case here, the answers to nearly every question asked of the witness — even to seemingly innocuous questions — are potentially incriminating, in that the answers could be the first link in a chain and would have leads and clues, to incriminating evidence,” Schauermann wrote.

Thom, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, called Farley’s position “baseless.”

“It is undisputed that Farley has a Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination,” she wrote in court records. “However, it is equally well-established that the privilege cannot be invoked to avoid answering questions that do not present a real and appreciable risk of criminal liability.”

— Maxine Bernstein covers federal court and criminal justice. Reach her at 503-221-8212, mbernstein@oregonian.com, follow her on X


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