all activities he loved. The head of MMIC's claims division argued that
the case was worth $350,000; by closing arguments, that figure had
risen to $750,000.
The Huitts and their attorney countered that such a verdict wouldn't
be nearly enough.
"When a hardworking man reaches the prime of his life and can
finally retire and enjoy time with his loving wife, there is an expecta-
tion that going to a clinic should not result in life-altering penis-short-
ening surgery that is 100% unnecessary and caused by a mix-up by the
pathologist," said Nick Rowley, lead trial lawyer for the family,
founder of Trial Lawyers for Justice, and partner at California person-
al injury law firm Carpenter, Zuckerman & Rowley. "For him, he's lost
his manhood, and an Iowa jury agrees his manhood is worth a lot
more than $750,000."
Indeed, after 3 hours of deliberation, they unanimously did agree —
to the tune of $12.25 million.
It's not clear if the decision will be appealed. Iowa Clinic did not
respond to Outpatient Surgery's request for comment, but a
spokesperson told the Register: "We are disappointed in the jury's
decision, but have great respect for the legal process. We will be eval-
uating our legal options."
Unstable clinical processes
When a doctor operates on the wrong patient, we rush to retrace the
surgeon's steps in the hopes of pinpointing the mix-up that led to the
mess-up in the OR. But what if the crucial error that set in motion the
sequence of events that led to the case of mistaken identity occurred in
a lab when a pathologist mistook biopsy samples on specimen slides?
How can your facility prevent a disastrous situation like this from
occurring? The only possible doublecheck is to have surgeons ques-
Medical Malpractice
MM
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