Legal advice re vets

smartindill

Hi my dog was castrated at 16 months old, he’s now 8yrs old. A couple of weeks ago he had surgery to remove a testicle in his abdomen that obviously shouldn’t have been there due to him being castrated.
This put him through a lot of unnecessary pain and cost me thousands in vets fees.
Is there anything I can do regarding my vets who performed the castration? 

thorsoak

Was your dog castrated at 16 months old, or did the vet perform a vasectomy?   If the latter, the testicles are not involved.   Although the fact that he had an undescended testicle should have been picked up at a check-up when he was two.

sheramber

Did the vet who castrated  him advise you only one was found/removed? What information or advice was given then?
It can be very difficult to find a retained testicle if it is hidden behind another organ and the vet  may not have been able to find the   retained one. 
The vet should still have medical records for him so you ned to speak to him.

smartindill

The vet knew he had an undescended testicle and said that they removed it as well as the one in his scrotum. He even had a little cut on his tummy, so what did they do?
Not sure wether to get legal advice first on email the vet.

KxMx

Perhaps there was a second undescended testacle making three which no one knew about. 
Rare but quite possible. 

Soot2006

KxMx said:

Perhaps there was a second undescended testacle making three which no one knew about. 
Rare but quite possible. 

This is  possible. Happened to me with a horse many years ago! Had two externals, which were both removed (easy to feel) + a third one found about 7 years later high up in abdomen!

Mistral001

Six years is the normal time limit for claiming for damages in the case of neiligence in most professions such as architecure, accountancy, surveying etc.  If this limit applied to vets, then the case would be statute barred and you could not sue for damages. Specialist legal advice will be required to see if this applies to vets.  Also sometimes the time at which the six years starts is disputed.  Again legal advice would be helpful.

PS.  There is nothing wrong with getting legal advice before contacting the vet. You do not have to heed the solicitor's advice remember, but they should be able to tell you how the law stands on the matter.

KimBaumgart

This is so strange. But, are the "new vets" absolutely sure it was a testicle. Did they run pathophysiology?

Undervalued

sheramber said:

Did the vet who castrated  him advise you only one was found/removed? What information or advice was given then?
It can be very difficult to find a retained testicle if it is hidden behind another organ and the vet  may not have been able to find the   retained one. 
The vet should still have medical records for him so you ned to speak to him.

Quite.

To successfully sue the first vet (assuming it is not statute barred) the OP would need some evidence that they were negligent. Just because they (apparently) got something wrong does not in itself prove that. Did they exercise the skill that could reasonably be expected of a general (i.e non specialist) vet? Was the OP warned of any risks?

Also, from a practical point of view, demanding records many years on will obviously sound alarm bells. Even assuming they still have them it wouldn't be beyond the bound of possibility for anything concerning to go missing!