Fourteen years after a disabled veteran first filed a claim for damages after he was injured during surgery at a veterans' medical center, a judge in the Northern District of New York agreed Tuesday to raise his award by nearly $17 million.

The decision—handed down by U.S. Senior District Judge Frederick Scullin Jr. of the Northern District of New York—brings to $22.3 million an award in favor of veteran Charles Malmberg.

Attorneys Robert Nichols of Buffalo and Alan Pierce of the Syracuse-based firm Hancock Estabrook argued for years that his claim was wrongly limited by an ad damnum clause based partly on the initial mildness of his symptoms.

Malmberg filed his lawsuit in 2006, claiming that he was injured during a 2004 surgery at a veterans' hospital in Syracuse.

In his initial filing, he asked for $6 million from the federal government. At that point, according to court papers, he could live independently and move around with a walker and a brace, despite suffering from incomplete quadriplegia.

Malmberg's condition worsened significantly over the next several years, according to court papers, but at the time he was first awarded a judgment in 2014, Scullin denied his request to raise the original claim above $6 million.

Malmberg was awarded almost $4.5 million at that point, including $2 million for past and future pain and suffering. By that time, he had no use of his legs, could not control his urinary or bowel function and suffered from severe daily pain, according to court papers.

He appealed, and in a 2016 ruling, a panel of Second Circuit judges vacated the pain and suffering award and ordered the district court to explain its reasoning more thoroughly.

The appellate court also ordered the district court to reconsider raising the maximum possible claim above $6 million, based on Malmberg's doctor's testimony that his deteriorating condition was not "reasonably foreseeable" in 2006.

In 2018, the district court raised Malmberg's award to almost $5.5 million but again refused to increase the maximum possible claim, and Malmberg appealed again.

After its second hearing of the case, the Second Circuit ruled in August that Malmberg's maximum possible claim should be raised to $25 million. The district court was instructed to once again reconsider Malmberg's pain and suffering award.

Tuesday's award included $7.5 million for past pain and suffering and $10.5 million for future pain and suffering.

"Our perseverance has been rewarded with an appropriate award," Pierce said in a statement following the verdict.

Thomas Spina, chief of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of New York's Civil Division, said Wednesday that prosecutors are reviewing the ruling and considering their appellate options.

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