A state court jury has awarded $20 million to a Lowell man who filed a lawsuit alleging that his left leg had to be amputated after employees at Lowell General Hospital’s emergency department twice misdiagnosed a painful blood clot as sciatica and sent him home.
The award, which is the state’s largest in a medical malpractice case this year based on a database compiled by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, was ordered on Friday by a Middlesex Superior Court jury in Lowell that deliberated for 9 1/2 hours over two days, according to Robert Higgins, the patient’s lawyer.
The sum surpassed the $16 million that Higgins had requested.
Higgins said his client, Steven Luppold, a 43-year-old former construction worker who had been disabled by injuries to his other leg before the amputation and stopped working, was pleased with the verdict but upset by the evidence presented during the trial.
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