Family of N.J. man who died during liposuction wins $40 mil. in lawsuit

Jet, June 23, 2003

The family of a 33-year-old New Jersey man who died during liposuction surgery recently won more than $40 million in damages in a malpractice suit against a New York clinic and the doctors who performed the procedure, the Daily News reported.

A Bronx, NY, jury awarded the money to the estate of Joel Cunningham, who died of a heart attack Jan. 8, 1998, after unlicensed doctors operated on him at the LaFontaine Cosmetic Surgery and Skin Care Center in Manhattan.

"Don't just go in and let someone perform surgery on you," said Margaret Brown, Cunningham's aunt, the paper reported. "My nephew lost his life because he didn't know."

Cunningham of Jersey City, NJ, had been admitted to the NYPD Police Academy. He went to the clinic for a tumescent liposuction to shrink his abdomen before he was to join the police force a few months later. But he suffered a heart attack during the procedure, possibly after he was given too much anesthesia.

"He died because he was given lousy care by people who were marginal," said David Kownacki, a lawyer for Cunningham's family, the paper reported.

Although juries are rarely allowed to consider punitive damages in malpractice cases, Bronx Supreme Court Justice Douglas McKeon told the panel it could consider them against clinic owner Sonia La-Fontaine and her husband, Arthur Kissel. After a three-week trial, the jury ordered a doctor and an anesthesiologist to pay about $360,000 to Cunningham's family. It also ordered the clinic's owners to pay $40 million in punitive damages.