Colome v. State Athletic Commission

47 Cal. App. 4th 1444, 55 Cal. Rptr. 2d 300, 96 Daily Journal DAR 9115, 96 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5611, 1996 Cal. App. LEXIS 721
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJuly 29, 1996
DocketB073686
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 47 Cal. App. 4th 1444 (Colome v. State Athletic Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Colome v. State Athletic Commission, 47 Cal. App. 4th 1444, 55 Cal. Rptr. 2d 300, 96 Daily Journal DAR 9115, 96 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5611, 1996 Cal. App. LEXIS 721 (Cal. Ct. App. 1996).

Opinion

Opinion

ARANDA, J. *

Procedural History

Kimberly Kelly, M.D., and Armando Morales, Ph.D., appellants/defendants appeal from a judgment for respondents/plaintiffs Diomedes Colome, a licensed boxer, and his manager, Jimmy Montoya.

*1448 The State Athletic Commission of California (hereinafter the Commission), Kenneth Gray, then the executive director of the Commission; Frederick Flynn, O.D., head of the Commission’s medical advisory committee; and Richard Drew, Ph.D., who worked with Flynn on the formulation of the Commission’s neurological test and standards are also defendants/appellants. All these parties are hereinafter referred to as the “State defendants.” They appeal from a judgment in favor of Colome.

Statement of Facts

Respondent Diomedes Colome was bom in the Dominican Republic. He dropped out of school after the second grade. Consequently, he is essentially illiterate. Colome quickly realized that the one thing he could do better than any person he knew was box, and from his early childhood he pursued his aspiration to become a champion professional boxer.

At the age of 11, Colome began devoting his energy exclusively to the sport of boxing. At the age of 13, he won the Dominican Republic national championship for the first time. He went on to win the national championship 12 times. He made his first trip to the United States as a 15-year-old winning the gold medal world championship for his age group. Thereafter he won the “golden gloves” tournament for three consecutive years in New York City. Colome does not speak English.

When he turned 17 Colome began training under the tutelage of respondent Jimmy Montoya. Montoya engaged Colome in a vigorous amateur boxing schedule through which he compiled a record of 112 wins and 3 defeats. As a professional boxer Colome’s success continued, and by age 23 he amassed a record of 24 wins and 1 loss. He won the ESPN welterweight championship and was invited to participate in the Stroh Boxing Tournament scheduled for the Inglewood Forum on February 8, 1988.

Jimmy Montoya became a boxing manager in California in 1974. Since that time he has operated the “Gym of Champions, Montoya-Azteca Gym.” He successfully managed a number of well-known prize fighters including several title holders. He would support his boxers financially, providing living and food allowances and instituted a program of physical conditioning and training. In 1987 he had approximately 80 to 100 boxers. In 1989, after the Colome incident, he had 30 boxers.

On September 17, 1987, Colome successfully passed both the mental status examination and a general neurological examination required by the *1449 Commission under Business and Professions Code section 18711 1 as a condition of licensure. When his license came up for renewal at the end of December 1987, his license should have been automatically renewed without the requirement of submitting to another neurological examination pursuant to Business and Professions Code section 18711, subdivision (b) which provides: “In the event that an applicant for licensure as a professional boxer undergoes a neurological examination for purposes of licensure within the 120-day period immediately preceding the normal expiration of that license the applicant shall not be required to undergo an additional neurological examination within the following calendar year unless the commission, for cause, orders that the examination be taken. The commission shall notify all commission approved physicians and referees that the commission has the authority to order any professional boxer to undergo a neurological examination.”

However, the Commission notified Montoya that Colome was required to submit to another neurological examination if he wanted to have his license renewed. Montoya questioned the need for the exam since he was unaware of any cause for ordering another examination so quickly. His objections were to no avail, and Colome was required to appear for the examination.

In 1987 defendant/appellant Kimberly Kelly, a practicing physician and neurologist at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) submitted a bid to the Commission to perform boxers’ neurological examinations. She believed she would be particularly well equipped to perform the exams because many of the boxers were non-English speaking and she had access to the interpreter service at UCLA. Her bid was accepted with the contract provision that: “All examinations shall be personally performed by the physician who is certified in neurology .... The mental status portion of the exam may be performed by a licensed neuropsychologist.”

Colome’s first examination was scheduled for January 22, 1988, but was rescheduled for February 2, 1988, just six days before his Stroh tournament *1450 semifinal bout. Colome and Montoya arrived at UCLA for the examination and were met by defendant/appellant Armando Morales.

Sometime after Kelly and the Commission signed their contract, she met Morales, the director of clinical social work and a professor of psychiatry at UCLA. Morales was not a neuropsychologist, psychologist or neurologist. He held a doctorate degree (Ph.D.) in social work. She testified that she believed Morales would be an ideal person to work with the Spanish-speaking boxers because he was a professional, bilingual, understood the cultures from which many of the boxers came and was a former amateur boxer himself. Morales had performed thousands of similar exams and Kelly believed him to be fully qualified to administer this examination.

Kelly sent Morales’s resume to the Commission and discussed it with Flynn. It had been Flynn’s responsibility as head of the Commission’s medical advisory committee to develop the neurological exam. He had been aided in this endeavor by Richard Drew, Ph.D. Morales was trained in the administration of the mental status portion of the neurological examination by both Flynn and Kelly. Both Flynn and Kelly testified that it is an acknowledged and common practice in California for physicians to utilize paraprofessionals in the administration of the mental status portion of the neurological exam.

Morales administered the tests to Colome in Spanish without the aid of an interpreter. The examination consisted of various psychometric tests such as the “Trails A” test which was a “connect the dot” numbers test, the “Trails B” test which alternated numbers and letters, the “symbol digit modalities” test where the examinee paired a symbol to a letter by referring to a legend equating the two, and the verbal memory test where the examinee chose four words—a city, an animal, a number and a color—and was asked to repeat them later during the test. Colome’s lack of literacy was evidenced by his inability to even recite the alphabet.

After administering the tests Morales did not interpret them, but simply left the results without comment for Kelly to review when she did the physical examination. Kelly scored the examination without the knowledge that Colome was illiterate and unable to even recite the alphabet. She determined that Colome had failed and notified the Commission.

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47 Cal. App. 4th 1444, 55 Cal. Rptr. 2d 300, 96 Daily Journal DAR 9115, 96 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5611, 1996 Cal. App. LEXIS 721, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/colome-v-state-athletic-commission-calctapp-1996.