Appellate court slashes RM3.1m award to RM123,000 over botched circumcision

 

The High Court, in awarding the RM3.1 million in damages last year, had stated that the delay by the medical staff in attending to the boy’s injuries in 2010 had extinguished any hope of saving his private part.

PUTRAJAYA: A 22-year-old man who lost the head of his penis in a botched circumcision 13 years ago was only awarded RM123,556 in damages compared to the RM3.1 million he had previously won in his lawsuit against the Malaysian government and four others.

The unanimous decision was made by a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeal, chaired by Justice Ravinthran Paramaguru, after finding that the damages amounting to RM3.1 million previously awarded by the High Court were too high.“The general damages of RM2 million obtained by the respondent (young man) were too high and not supported by any documentation.

“Therefore the general damages of RM2 million is reduced to RM100,000; the special damages is reduced from RM108,356 to RM23,556.

“The court also sets aside the severe and exemplary damages amounting to RM1 million awarded by the High Court because these were not stated in the pleadings and there was no basis to allow them.

“However, the costs of RM100,000 awarded by the High Court are upheld,” said Ravinthran, who sat with See Mee Chun and Zaini Mazlan at today’s online Zoom proceedings.

Besides the government, the other four defendants were the Kuala Lipis Hospital’s medical officer and director, and the Selayang Hospital’s specialist and director.

In the ruling, Ravinthran said the court would not interfere with the findings made by the trial judge who found that the five defendants, who are the appellants in this case, were responsible for the delay in treatment given to the youth involved at the two hospitals until the surgery took place at 8.30pm on Dec 13, 2010.

At today’s proceedings, the five appellants were represented by senior federal counsel Nurhafizza Azizan and federal counsel Saravanan Kuppusamy. The man was represented by Zainuddin Abu Bakar.

The five appellants appealed against the decision of Justice Akhtar Tahir on April 7, 2022, who awarded damages amounting to RM3.1 million to the young man.

Akhtar, in his written judgment issued on May 27, 2022, said the delay by the medical staff in attending to the man’s injuries had extinguished any hope of saving his private part.

The man, who filed the suit on July 19, 2018, through his mother, claimed that the circumcision process on Dec 13, 2010, was not carried out according to the prescribed procedure, resulting in the entire head of his penis being severed.

As a result of the permanent disability, the victim’s mother claimed that her son who was 10 years old at the time of the incident had gone into a shell and found it difficult to interact with others. - FMT