A federal judge has ordered a Pennsylvania doctor and her husband to pay Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. $1.87 million in fee sanctions and counterclaim damages in a discrimination lawsuit that was deemed to have been lodged in bad faith.

In a June 5 order, U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton, sitting in Newark, directed the doctor, Afoluso Adesanya, to pay Novartis $457,040 in counsel fees and costs for defending the lawsuit, and her husband, Adenekan Hezekiah Adesanya, to pay another $23,714 for helping his wife pursue what the judge said was a baseless lawsuit.

Wigenton declined to impose sanctions on Adesanya's prior attorneys—Cherry Hill solo Jerald Abrams, and Ari Karpf, of Bensalem, Pennsylvania's Karpf, Karpf & Cerutti—who withdrew as counsel during the course of the litigation.