A $2,000 court ruling over a ruptured appendix will cost the Bermuda Hospitals Board more than $80,000 after they were ordered to pay the complainant’s legal bill.Kamal Williams had sued the BHB for pain, suffering and lasting injuries caused after his appendix ruptured on May 30, 2011.The Supreme Court had heard that Mr Williams attended King Edward VII Memorial at 11.17am suffering from abdominal pain.While a CT scan was ordered within an hour, it was not carried out until 5.15pm and the results were not received by doctors until 7.38pm.Mr Williams went into surgery at 9.24pm but doctors discovered his appendix had already ruptured, leaking fecal matter into his abdominal cavity.While the recovery period for a routine appendectomy involved only one or two days in hospital, Mr Williams remained in hospital for two weeks and suffered some permanent injury to his heart and lungs.Michaels Leitman, of New York’s Beth Israel Medical Centre, told the court that surgery should be carried out as soon as possible, ideally within four hours, but Alisdair Conn, Head of Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital said a ten to 12 hour wait was acceptable.Delivering his ruling, Justice Stephen Hellman found that Mr Williams said Dr Leitman’s suggested four-hour period was “optimistic,” and that if the CT scans had been sought on an urgent basis, the complainant could have been in surgery within five or six hours.But he also found that Mr Williams’ appendix likely ruptured at around 3.19pm — two hours before he could have been in surgery if the CT scan results were received promptly.Overall, Mr Justice Hellman said Mr Williams failed to prove that the complications were caused by the BHB’s failure to diagnose and treat him expeditiously, but noted that the delays had caused the complainant hours of unnecessary pain and discomfort.Mr Justice Hellman ordered the BHB pay the complainant $2,000 in damages and ruled that costs should follow the event.The ruling meant that in addition to the $2,000 awarded to Mr Williams, the BHB would have to pay Mr William’s legal costs — estimated to be $79,543.06.According to an Ex Tempore Ruling dated February 13, the BHB subsequently applied that there be no order of costs.In the ruling, Mr Justice Hellman said: “My intention when awarding damages to Mr Williams was that he should be compensated in the sum of those damages.“Unless I make an order for costs in his favour, that intention will be rendered nugatory. No authority has been cited to me that prohibits me from taking this into account.”He also said that the claim was properly brought, and not a “nuisance claim.”Given all the circumstances, he found that there was no reason to depart from the general rule that costs should follow the event, and made an order that the BHB pay Mr William’s costs.