‘unethical’ doc injures MTA case

A DOCTOR the MTA hired in an injury case copped to being unethical on the stand — and the limo driver he was testifying against landed a $9 million verdict Tuesday.

Dr. Robert Pick, an orthopedic surgeon who last operated in 1987, stunned a courtroom when he acknowledged making money off the case of Sarabjeet Bajaj — a limo driver who was rear-ended by an MTA bus while parked in Queens in 2014 — before the MTA hired him to be an expert witness.

“I’m unethical,” Pick said bluntly, according to transcripts of his cross-examination about payments to review documents for Bajaj’s insurer.

Eric Subin, an attorney on Bajaj’s legal team, said there were gasps in the room following the statement, which promptly ended the cross-examination.

Pick had also given sketchy testimony about the results of two examinations he gave Bajaj, even though one lacked any details about the former limo driver’s condition. The doctor said he never reviewed the reports bearing his signature, and he repeatedly testified he had no recollection of Bajaj or the specifics of the examination because he conducts hundreds of them.

Subin said the “cookie-cutter” reports showed collusion between the MTA and Pick, who made $7,500 for his MTA testimony. “He is allowing them under his name to generate these bogus reports,” Subin said. “I think it was shocking to the jury and the jury probably was angered by this nefarious conduct and issued a punitive verdict as a result.”

Answering questions from the MTA lawyer, Pick said his conclusions on Bajaj’s condition did not change. He told the judge he did not prepare a false report.

Pick declined to discuss the case when reached by the Daily News. “Let me talk to my lawyer and get back to you,” he said.

An MTA spokeswoman declined comment.

Bajaj won a $17 million verdict Monday, but the jury and judge cut it to $9 million Tuesday. His lawyer said no reason was offered. The money will cover past and future medical costs, as well as Bajaj’s pain and suffering.

Bajaj was drinking coffee and reading a newspaper in his parked limo on Ditmars Blvd. on April 22, 2014, when an accordion-style bus driven by Brian Rufle slammed into the rear, right side of the vehicle.

“I was shocked. I had no idea,” Bajaj recalled. “It’s very early in the morning, that time. There was no rush.”

Bajaj felt a pain in his left shoulder the day of the accident. By the next day, the pain had spread to his lower back, neck and shoulders. He eventually developed a weak right leg, a condition known as a “foot drop.”

Bajaj endured four surgeries, one for his shoulder and three on his spine. He also had four discs removed.

“The only way to drive a limo, you have to use your right leg,” Bajaj, a father of two adult children, told The News. “If it’s so weak, I can’t work.”

He remembers one examination with Pick that lasted just 10 minutes.

“I wasn’t completely satisfied with the job he was doing that day,” he said.

Bajaj hasn’t driven professionally since the crash, but he runs a side business renting out cars to Taxi & Limousine Commission drivers.