(Updated to include comments from Rick Glein, supervising staff attorney for the state Department of Health)

POULSBO — Dr. Narinder Duggal was not negligent in the care and treatment he provided to a former patient who accused him of malpractice, a Kitsap County Superior Court jury found on Feb. 1.

This lawsuit was the only one of three that went to trial; the others were dropped or dismissed in 2015.

“He’s very upbeat now,” said Thomas Olmstead, one of Duggal’s attorneys. “Every person that has filed a lawsuit against him has been proven wrong. That’s been his position all along, that he would be vindicated.”

An aide at the law office for the former patient in the latest case took a message Feb. 6, but promptly hung up when asked a question about the case.

Next for Duggal: a hearing May 15-20 before the state Medical Quality Assurance Commission, at which Duggal will argue that his medical license should be reinstated.

Even as he began the arduous effort to restore his medical license and his reputation in two different courts, Duggal — of the now-defunct Liberty Bay Internal Medicine — said he would be vindicated and that all of the accusations against him would be proven false.

The people who accused him of overprescribing medication and making sexual advances were “liars,” he said.

The first civil case against him was dismissed on June 19, 2015 when the plaintiff, representing herself after her attorney withdrew, said she wouldn’t be ready to go to trial on the scheduled date.

The plaintiff in a second civil case against Duggal dropped her lawsuit on Oct. 14, 2015. Court documents show that she — a law school grad and certified conflict resolution consultant — had submitted a list of 20 witnesses and 29 evidentiary exhibits only a day earlier. But Olmstead said the lawsuit was dropped, not settled.

And on Nov. 22, 2016, a state Appeals Court judge ruled that the state Medical Quality Assurance Commission wrongfully denied Duggal’s request for a hearing regarding its findings against him — findings that led to him losing his medical license.

To recap: Following its investigation into the allegations of eight former patients, the state Medical Quality Assurance Commission determined that Duggal had committed “unprofessional conduct” and, on Jan. 15, 2014, Duggal signed an agreement to voluntarily surrender his license. On Feb. 4, he asked that the agreement be withdrawn and requested a hearing at which he could respond to the commission’s findings; according to documents in the case, Duggal was entitled to “the opportunity to defend against these charges.” The state instead accepted the surrender agreement, on Feb. 13.

A Thurston County Superior Court judge upheld the state’s decision on Oct. 9, 2015; the state Court of Appeals ruled for Duggal.

Duggal’s director of pharmacology at Liberty Bay Internal Medicine was also disciplined by the state for level of care while he worked there. On Feb. 27, 2016, the state Pharmacy Quality Assurance Commission reprimanded Nicholas Wyatt, placed his license on probation, and ordered him to complete a typewritten essay of at least 1,000 words “addressing the pharmacist’s duty” under the Washington Administrative Code “to ensure the safety of the patient’s behalf in either a clinical or institutional setting.” Probation ended on April 28, 2016, according to records in the state’s online database.

It wasn’t immediately known how the Superior Court jury’s verdict may influence Duggal’s hearing before the Medical Quality Assurance Commission, or how the state and jury came to different conclusions about the accusations against Duggal.

Rick Glein, supervising staff attorney for the state Department of Health, said the jury’s decision “doesn’t really affect the medical commission. The commission operates under administrative law and [the earlier findings] will all be addressed. We do our own investigation and it will be tried in front of other commissioners, not just lay people on a civil jury.”

Olmstead said he doesn’t think the state has a case. “In a civil case, the standard of proof is a ‘preponderance of evidence.’ For the Medical Quality Assurance Commission, it’s ‘clear and convincing evidence.’ The state is trying to prove the same thing, but how can they when it’s been dismissed at a lower [standard of evidence]?”