Record $8.35 Million D.C. Verdict After Knee Surgery Cost an 82-Year-Old His Leg

In July 2013, Eloyd Robinson, an 82-year-old security guard, went in for a total knee replacement at United Medical Center in Washington, D.C. The operation did not go as planned. His surgeon, Dr. Rida Azer, found the femoral bone crumbling and could not finish the replacement. Instead, Dr. Azer placed a temporary bone graft and put the whole leg in a cast.

Robinson was never a routine case. He had significant peripheral vascular disease, neuropathy in his right leg, and a stent placed in his right superficial femoral artery in 2011 to keep blood moving to the lower leg. He was taking Plavix because of that stent. During the surgery, Dr. Azer used a tourniquet to cut off blood flow, a step that should not have been used on a patient with Robinson's circulation problems.

Over the month that followed, Robinson saw Dr. Azer five times in his office. He was in serious pain, and the blood supply to his leg was failing the whole time. The surgeon did not recognize that the leg was slowly dying. By the time other doctors stepped in, the limb could not be saved. They amputated it above the knee.

The Robinsons filed suit in November 2015 against Dr. Azer and the American International Orthopaedic Association. Patrick Malone, working with co-counsel Kenneth Trombly and Daniel Singer, tried the case in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. The plaintiffs argued that Dr. Azer was a bone surgeon, not an artery specialist, and that he should have brought in a vascular surgeon before using a tourniquet on a man with a femoral-artery stent.

At trial, the firm worked through the records visit by visit: a patient reporting worsening pain, a leg that was cooling and losing color, and a surgeon who kept treating the problem as an ordinary orthopedic recovery rather than a vascular emergency. The warning signs were present at each follow-up, and each one passed without action.

Before trial, the defense had offered $750,000 to settle, and the Robinsons had demanded $5 million. On June 15, 2017, the jury went past both figures. It awarded Eloyd Robinson $6.75 million and his wife, Clara, $1.6 million for loss of consortium, for a combined $8.35 million. Coverage of the result described it as a record personal-injury verdict in D.C. Superior Court at the time.