In 2007, one Chicago family underwent a nightmare at Northwestern hospital: their newborn son’s circumcision went awry, with a doctor amputating the tip of the boy’s penis. According to a lawyer for the family, Dan Kotin, the doctor missed three safety procedures that should have been followed. According to Kotin, the boy lost “the top 40 percent of the head of his penis.”

The doctor’s attorney argued that this was a predictable complication of circumcision, to which Kotin responded, “If that were a known complication to a circumcision procedure, I suggest to you that nobody would dare have a circumcision done because it would be too risky.”

The jury awarded the family $1.3 million in damages.