The lawsuit was filed by Steven Haines, a 54 year-old man who saw Dr. V. Spencer Long regarding pain in his right testicle for 15 years.
Dr. Long performed surgery to remove the testicle at J.C. Blair Memorial Hospital in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania — but instead of removing the right testicle, Dr. Long removed the healthy left testicle.
Lawyers say Dr. Long should have noticed that Mr. Haines’ atrophic, painful right testicle was noticeably smaller than his left one. Dr. Long also performed a vasectomy on Mr. Haines in the wrong region.
After a three-day civil trial and 80 minutes of deliberation, the jury of one man and 11 women found Dr. Long “recklessly indifferent” and awarded Mr. Haines $620,000 in compensation for his past and future pain and suffering, plus a $250,000 punitive award against Dr. Long.
According to Mr. Haines’ attorneys:
Mr. Hanes is now forced to either live with the painful testicle or undergo treatment that could result in the loss of the remaining testicle, making him reliant on hormone therapy for the rest of his life.”
The same lawyers who represented Mr. Hanes are now representing the family of another patient who died after an operation by Dr. Long. The 77 year-old urologist is no longer doing surgeries, lawyers said.
The lawsuit also accused J.C. Blair Memorial Hospital of failing to implement policies to prevent this type of medical mistake.