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A dermatology practice in Silver Spring was found liable for a 47-year-old Rockville man's death from skin cancer and must pay his surviving family $5.8 million in damages, a jury decided Friday in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

The practice of Dr. Norman Ansel Lockshin, at 10313 Georgia Ave., will have to pay the damages on behalf of a former employee, Dr. Michael Robert Albert, who the jury ruled did not accurately treat a mole that turned into malignant melanoma. Lockshin was not found personally responsible for the incident.

The award will be reduced to $3.6 million due to a Maryland cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases, said Patrick Malone, the attorney representing the family of Richard Semsker.

Here is Semsker's story, according to the lawsuit.

Semsker visited Lockshin's practice for a checkup in 1998. Lockshin found a mole on his lower back and wrote a letter to Semsker's primary care physician recommending it be removed. The mole, however, was not removed.

It was noted again in September 2004 when Semsker returned to have some boils on his upper back examined. He saw Albert, who was in his first day on the job as a part-time employee. His full-time job at the time was as a medical officer for dermatologic drugs for the Food and Drug Administration in Rockville.

Albert recommended two cysts and an atypical mole on Semsker's upper back should be removed, but suggested to Marcus that the mole on Semsker's lower back should be monitored, although it had doubled in size since 1998. Albert was unaware of the size increase because Lockshin had purged his old records, as is allowed under state law for records more than five years old.

Semsker returned to the dermatology office in August of 2006 when his wife noticed the mole on his lower back had changed color. It was removed at Lockshin's office, but shortly afterward it was found the cancer had traveled to dozens of lymph nodes in Semsker's groin and lower abdomen.

The cancer traveled to Semsker's brain and he died in October 2007.

Semsker is survived by his wife and two children. His family filed the lawsuit against Lockshin, his practice, Albert, Marcus and Marcus' practice for failing to detect the cancerous mole. The primary doctor reached a confidential settlement with the family during the trial.

Although Lockshin's office got rid of any previous records about the mole, the family alleged Albert should have removed it because it was still a worrisome size.

During the trial, the family called as an expert witness a prominent melanoma researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, who testified Semsker would have had a 95 percent chance of a complete cure if the mole had been removed in 2004, but that the delay allowed the cancer to travel into the bloodstream and become incurable, according to a statement from Malone.

Malone said the family does not want to comment on the verdict

"We believe justice was served by this verdict," he said on the family's behalf Tuesday.

He called this case a tragedy because Semsker would be alive today had his mole been removed.

"His doctors let him down," Malone said.

Lockshin's practice's insurance will pay the lawsuit, allowing the practice to continue, he said. Neither Lockshin nor his lawyer, Thomas C. Marriner of Wharton, could be reached for comment.

Albert, who now lives in Woodbridge, Conn., could not be reached for comment. The Maryland Board of Physicians lists his license as expired since 2006 and it has not been renewed.

According to Malone's statement, Albert testified during the trial that he left medicine because of the lawsuit and was planning to become a high school biology teacher in Connecticut. He trained at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, according to the statement.