Saying he had made a "misinformed" decision, a federal judge slashed from $1 million to $150,000 his "egregiously excessive" award to the three children of a man who died from an infection after a gastric bypass operation. Reconsidering the evidence presented to him during last year's seven-day bench trial in Jupiter v. United States, 05-cv-4449, Eastern District Judge I. Leo Glasser (See Profile) noted that only 31 pages of the children's direct testimony concerned the effect that Warren Jupiter Jr.'s death had on them.
Jupiter was 54 when he died in December 2005, 2 1/2 years after bypass surgery on the once 550-pound man at a V.A. hospital in Queens. Jupiter's three children were 21, 19 and 16 when he died and the testimony reflected that he had verbally abused one of his sons and failed at times to provide them with financial support.
