A Roanoke jury has awarded a $3.5 million verdict to a Clifton Forge woman who sued her podiatrist over a 2003 surgery that she says caused incurable chronic pain and led to the amputation of the front of her right foot.

The sizable verdict is remarkable in that it's a larger sum than the $3 million Donita Franklin originally sought when she sued Dr. Jennifer Feeny in 2005.

Yet Franklin likely won't receive the full amount because Virginia has a cap of $1.6 million on medical malpractice awards. Her lawyer said her medical bills and lost wages totaled $2.25 million.

Franklin's lawyer, Patrick Fennell, acknowledged the cap and said in his opinion it was unconstitutional. "It creates a protected class of health care providers at the expense of people's lives that are ruined by negligent doctors," he said.

Feeny, of Shenandoah Valley Podiatry in Troutville, maintains that she did nothing wrong when she performed surgery on Franklin's foot to remove a bunion. Feeny said in a statement released Monday that she empathizes with what Franklin has gone through but that the condition afflicting Franklin, known as complex regional pain syndrome, has no known cause.

Paul Kuhnel, one of Feeny's lawyers, said there was compelling evidence that Franklin's problems resulted from "a very rare complication from surgery that could not have been prevented."

Kuhnel said his client hasn't decided yet whether to appeal the verdict, which came down Friday evening after a four-day trial. He hopes the verdict will not be seen as a reflection on Feeny's care. "The complication, we believe, was not caused by anything she did specifically."

Fennell argues differently, saying Feeny made a number of mistakes and failed to notify Franklin as to how serious the procedure to remove a bunion would be.

A bunion usually appears as a lump at the base joint of a big toe and causes the toe to turn painfully inward. The surgery Feeny performed on Franklin in March 2003 involved shaving the first metatarsal bone that the big toe is connected to, then cutting the bone into two pieces, realigning the pieces to straighten the toe, and fastening the pieces together with screws so they could heal.

In Franklin's case, the cut in the bone wasn't straight and the screws weren't placed properly, causing the bone to separate and bend so that it didn't heal, Fennell asserted. The misalignment also caused bones in Franklin's foot to rub together, he said.

The excruciating pain Franklin suffered became a permanent condition that didn't go away even after she had the front of her right foot amputated, Fennell said.

Franklin, who used to be a factory worker, now lives on disability and uses a wheelchair or crutches to get around. "She used to be very active before this" and liked to ride horses, the lawyer said. "Now she can't do anything."

Steven Feeny, Jennifer Feeny's husband and office manager, said Monday that he and his wife could have settled the suit but felt that "she did nothing wrong and she just had to have her day in court."