Qld cosmetic surgeon Dr Cesidio Colagrande wins defamation case against Dr Min Sik Kim

High-profile cosmetic surgeon Cesidio Colagrande has won a defamation case against a rival doctor who has been ordered to pay him more than $450,000.

Dr Cesidio Colagrande has been successful in his defamation case. Picture: drcescolagrande.com.

High-profile cosmetic surgeon Cesidio Colagrande has won a defamation case against a rival Gold Coast doctor who has been ordered to pay him more than $450,000 and restrained from republishing a false review on a medical rating website.

The Federal Court of Australia ordered the Dr Colagrande’s competitor, Dr Min Sik Kim and his wife Anna Min to pay $420,000 in damages and $31,511.29 in special damages for publishing a false and damaging review about Dr Colagrande on the popular RateMDs website.

RateMDs, the court judgment said, is self-described as the “original and largest Doctor rating site since 2004 with over 40 million visits every year”. Members of the public can post entries relating to doctors on the RateMDs website.”

The review, which named Dr Colagrande and his business, contained a link to a news story about a sexual assault allegation.

The false review was alleged to be written by a patient, who claimed to have been sexually assaulted by Dr Colagrande.

But Dr Colagrande was convicted of indecent assault of a patient, but later had the conviction quashed on appeal. The prosecution then formally abandoned the charge.

The Gold Coast-based Dr Colagrande sued after reading the false review online and tracking down the IP address of the account of the person who posted the review which was revealed to be Dr Kim and his wife.

Dr Colagrande told the court that felt “sick to the bone” on discovering that the person who posted the false review was another doctor who he understood practised in the same field as he did.

“He described himself as becoming paranoid about other doctors, did not know who to trust, and felt isolated from other doctors, defenceless, vulnerable and in despair. His anxiety increased and he feared others would read the false review and, like he did, assume that it was from the former patient who was trying to exact vengeance,” the judgment said.

Dr Kim is a cosmetic surgeon who performed liposuction, Brazilian butt lifts, breast augmentation using fat transfer, and administered injectables at his Gold Coast rooms.

Dr Colagrande is also Gold Coast based and performs breast augmentation procedures and has a practice attracting patients from around Australia and overseas.

Judge Jayne Jagot found that Dr Kim and his wife acted in concert to upload the post containing the false review to the RateMDs to harm the reputation of Dr Colagrande a perceived commercial competitor.

Originally published as Qld cosmetic surgeon Dr Cesidio Colagrande wins defamation case against Dr Min Sik Kim