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jury Tuesday awarded more than $2 million to a Paterson woman who had sued a Wayne plastic surgeon for botching the removal of hanging skin after dramatic weight loss from gastric bypass surgery.
Jennifer Auston underwent a procedure known as brachioplasty on June 6, 2002, in which Dr. Allan Wasserstrum removed redundant soft tissue from Auston's arms that resulted from her substantial weight loss. Lawyer John B. Collins argued that Wasserstrum overestimated how much tissue to remove from the patient's left arm when taking preoperative measurements.
He said that when Wasserstrum discovered he had removed too much tissue in surgery, he hastily performed a skin graft to correct the problem. But, the attorney said, the tissue had been discarded into a receptacle that was not sterile. Wasserstrum knew that but used it anyway, Collins said.
The tissue later died because it was not properly preserved and because the graft was not sufficiently planned, he said.
During the next few weeks, Auston developed gangrene and had to undergo another operation in which Wasserstrum performed another graft. She was ultimately left with severe scarring, disfigurement and nerve damage, Collins said.
Auston, 41, has been in severe pain ever since, has had difficulty sleeping, is unable to so much as hug her children and has a special electronic device implanted in her spine that tricks the brain into reducing her pain, according to Collins. Auston also had to reduce her work hours before switching over to a less demanding, lower-paying job because of her disability.
"It's an unabating cycle of pain and misery," Collins said Tuesday during his summation to jurors seated in Paterson before Superior Court Judge Joseph J. Riva. "The pain is not gone. The pain will always be there every single day of her life."
The doctor's lawyer, Joseph A. Manning, acknowledged that a mistake was made during the first surgery, but maintained that Wasserstrum did not de- viate from accepted standard surgical procedures.
"He wasn't negligent, even though there was a bad outcome," Manning told jurors. The receptacle holding the accidentally excised tissue was clean, he argued. The doctor's method in taking measurements of the tissue to be excised were proper, even if the measurements themselves were somewhat erroneous, he said.
Manning also noted that Auston appeared perfectly fine while seated in court during the weeklong trial and questioned why she failed to tell Wasserstrum that she had sought treatment for pain management from an outside physician while still under his postoperative care.
The jury unanimously agreed that Wasserstrum, who is now retired, deviated from accepted standards of plastic surgery and that he was negligent.
The panel awarded Auston $2 million for her pain and suffering; $40,000 for past lost wages; $98,000 for future lost wages; and another $40,000 to her husband, James, for loss of his wife's services within the context of their marriage.
Manning declined to comment when asked whether he planned to appeal the verdict.
E-mail: petrick@northjersey.com -ST_KEY- SURGERY; LAWSUIT -ST_NA- Auston, Jennifer; Wasserstrum, Allan; Collins, John; Manning, Joseph A
(C) 2006 The Record, Bergen County, NJ. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved
