Thomas Dulski was on his way home from the hospital when he sensed that his robotic prostatectomy had gone terribly wrong. He began urinating out of his rectum and noticed that dark matter was coming out of his penis. "I started defecating out of my penis and releasing gas through the penis," said Mr. Dulski, in court documents. "I kind of panicked at that point."

Mr. Dulski is suing Intuitive Surgical, the manufacturer of the DaVinci robot, for negligence and product liability. In a lawsuit filed in March 2010, Mr. Dulski, of West Seneca, N.Y., claims that Intuitive and its field engineer were negligent because they let surgeons at Mercy Hospital of Buffalo use a defective robot that had been repaired 21 times at a cost of nearly $200,000. Intuitive knew, or should have known, that the robot was defective, claims Mr. Dulski, in a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Buffalo.

In January 2007, Dr. Dulski went to Mercy for a radical prostatectomy to be performed with the robot. There were serious problems with the robot during the procedure, according to court records, and the device created a hole in Mr. Dulski's colon. The surgeon, Christopher Kopp, MD, said in his operative report that the robot malfunctioned several times. When he and the technicians couldn't get it working properly, he decided to convert to an open procedure. "It was very frustrating and technical[ly] difficult with the machine when the machine kept malfunctioning," wrote Dr. Kopp. After surgery, Mr. Dulski went to recovery in good condition, according to the report.

Mr. Dulski had to undergo 4 subsequent surgeries, use a catheter to urinate and wear a colostomy bag. He suffered incontinence and erectile dysfunction. While he'd originally sued Dr. Kopp for malpractice, but as the robot's extensive maintenance record was revealed, his attorneys redirected the case towards Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Intuitive Surgical.

Intuitive Surgical's attorney in Buffalo declined comment for this article because the litigation is ongoing. Mr. Dulski's attorney did not respond to a request for comment before deadline. After a dispute over the jurisdiction of the issue, the case will continue next month in federal court.

Kent Steinriede