Rex USA

 

Penny Johnson was awarded $9.7 million for a botched plastic surgery operation.

Penny Johnson, a part-owner of a financial and IT consultant business, said her face was constantly contracting and she had a permanent buzzing around her eye, after the 2003 operation, the BBC reported.

As a result of the botched surgery, she lost her business - and became a recluse who wouldn't socialize with their close friends anymore, her husband said.

"Their marriage has survived, but the claimant said in evidence that she is no longer a wife to her husband," the judge said in is ruling.

"He says that she is now a completely different person and that their marriage is not what it used to be."

The judge also noted that Johnson formerly was a happy and outstandingly successful woman.

The doctor, Le Roux Fourie, denied the surgery was experimental, but admitted liability in the case.

The case is far from the first plastic surgery horror story to serve as a cautionary tale.

This year, a New Jersey woman received a $115,000 settlement from her plastic surgeon after a procedure left her unable to fully close her eyes.