An Atlanta cosmetic surgeon battling lawsuits from five patients who allege he permanently damaged and disfigured their faces has filed for bankruptcy with his wife, listing $13.6 million in debts and $37,000 in assets.
Harvey “Chip” Cole and his wife, Susan Cole, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Oct. 30, after four of the pending lawsuits were filed in Fulton County. The fifth lawsuit followed on Nov. 21. Alex Seay, an attorney for the patients, says she is additionally investigating more than 30 potential cases against Cole and his business, Oculus Plastic Surgery.
“We have one client who’s losing his eyesight because the cheek implants that (Cole) had no business putting in the (patient’s) face are sitting on his ocular muscle, and nobody can safely remove them,” Seay said. “He is going blind, and there’s nothing anyone can do.”
Through his attorney in the patient lawsuits, Cole denied breaching a reasonable standard of care, saying he had performed thousands of procedures on patients without complication in his 35-year career. His attorney, Scott Bailey, said cosmetic surgery comes with known risks.
“He prioritizes patient safety and satisfaction and has dedicated his professional life to the specialty of facial and oculoplastic surgery,” Bailey said of Cole.
Cole is a licensed ophthalmologist, or eye specialist, who advertises himself as a plastic surgeon. He is being investigated by the Georgia Composite Medical Board, with which his license expires in March.
The board’s executive director did not immediately respond Thursday to an inquiry. Complaints to the board and its investigative records are confidential.
Credit: Supplied
Credit: Supplied
Bankruptcy puts lawsuits in limbo
Cole’s bankruptcy petition automatically halted the patient suits. The patients, listed as creditors, are now asking the bankruptcy court to let their cases proceed while the couple’s finances are sorted.
Seay said Cole’s insurer is involved in the patient lawsuits, which don’t impact the couple’s personal estate. The bankruptcy judge is due to consider the patients’ request on Dec. 17.
“From what I’ve seen in the bankruptcy, I’m not even sure there’s anything there for the lawsuits to impact,” Seay said. “It appears like he’s made some bad business decisions, bad investments, had other lawsuits and judgments against him, and one thing snowballed on another and he found himself in a mountain of debt.”
The Coles’ bankruptcy attorneys did not immediately comment.
The couple detailed their debts and assets in a 50-page form filed Nov. 20 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Georgia. They sought to protect various assets from liquidation, including a 2021 Jeep Wrangler, two firearms and thousands of dollars worth of jewelry, clothes, electronics, household goods and furnishings.
The Coles do not own the Brookhaven home they live in, according to property tax records. It is listed as the address for one of Cole’s companies, InsideOut Beauty LLC.
The couple’s liabilities include $5.4 million owed to the U.S. Small Business Administration, $4.6 million to New York-based business solutions company Newtek and more than $176,000 in outstanding federal, state and county taxes.
Court filings show Cole separately owes $2.8 million to an Alpharetta equity company that was administratively dissolved in 2022, and almost $260,000 to a corporate landlord that sued him and his surgery practice in 2020 over unpaid rent.
Another creditor is Atlanta law firm Smith Gambrell & Russell, hired by Cole in June 2023 to represent him in an investigation at Northside Hospital, case filings show. The firm sued Cole in May 2024, claiming he failed to pay his bill. On Oct. 1, Cole was ordered to pay the firm just over $100,000.
Northside cuts ties with Cole
Northside is being sued alongside Cole by the five patients whose surgeries by Cole either took place at Northside facilities or were scheduled to.
“He wouldn’t have had a surgery center without them,” Seay said of Northside. “You’ve got a hospital that is just looking out for their bottom line and not protecting patients, and instead turning a blind eye to a very dangerous man.”
In his state medical board profile, Cole reports that he has hospital privileges at Northside. A spokesperson for the hospital system said Thursday that Cole is not a member of its medical staff and does not treat patients at its facilities.
“If any of his directory profiles state that he is on our staff, those are incorrect,” the spokesperson said. “Because of the ongoing litigation related to this issue, we are not able to share additional details.”
Seay said several of Cole’s patients told her they were due to be operated on by Cole at Northside facilities, but that he changed the venue.
In the latest lawsuit, plaintiff Jennifer Messer alleges that Cole quoted her $33,501 for a raft of procedures at Northside, after she had complained about the previous surgeries he had performed on her. She said Cole told her in November 2023 the surgeries could no longer be performed at Northside, offering to do them instead at a “cool sculpting spa” in Atlanta for $3,216.
Credit: Courtesy Jennifer Messer
Credit: Courtesy Jennifer Messer
“Understandably, Plaintiff elected not to proceed with the revision surgery,” Messer’s lawsuit says.
Seay said investigators from the state medical board told her they are looking into allegations that Cole is performing “off-the-books” surgeries at spas on weekends.
Allegations against Cole span decades
Cole has been accused in patient lawsuits of botching surgeries for more than two decades.
He settled a lawsuit over the 1999 death of Jeannie Huff, whose blood pressure fatally dropped during an eyebrow lift surgery in his office. Another case, brought by a female physician whose face became infected after Cole operated on her using dirty instruments, was settled mid-trial, according to her attorney.
Cole successfully defended a 2003 case alleging he left a different patient with a sunken eye, numbness, double vision and limited taste and smell. A Fulton County jury cleared Cole of wrongdoing in that case in 2007.
In 2008, another of Cole’s patients and her husband won a $1.2 million verdict. Marietta real estate agent Betty Nestlehutt was 72 when she had surgery in 2006, hoping a more youthful appearance would help her stay professionally competitive. Instead, she spent almost a year with large open wounds and was permanently scarred.
Credit: Supplied
Credit: Supplied
In 2010, the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the Nestlehutt verdict in a landmark ruling that ended the state’s cap on certain damages in medical malpractice cases.
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