STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) – A lesbian couple has filed a medical malpractice lawsuit claiming botched cancer treatments damaged their love life. Their attorneys say it is the first of its kind under Connecticut’s civil unions law.

Margaret Mueller and Charlotte Stacey are suing two doctors, accusing them of treating Mueller for ovarian cancer when she actually had cancer of the appendix. They contend Mueller underwent years of devastating chemotherapy treatments while the real cancer spread.

“I think it’s any patient’s worst fear that everything they’re doing to treat themselves is for naught,” said Joshua Koskoff, an attorney for the couple.

Connecticut’s civil union law, passed last year, allowed Stacey also to sue for the harm to her relationship, known as a loss of consortium claim, Koskoff said. Before the law gave same-sex couples the same legal rights as heterosexual married couples in Connecticut, only a married partner could seek that compensation.

“The victims of malpractice are rich and poor, gay and straight, Democrat and Republican,” Koskoff said. “If that’s the case, the law shouldn’t discriminate in the way it treats victims of malpractice.”

Attorneys for the doctors, Iris Wertheim and Isidore Tepler, say the two provided appropriate care for a complex illness.

Eric Stockman, Wertheim’s attorney, said he does not plan to challenge Stacey’s right to be added to the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages.

The original lawsuit was filed earlier this year on Mueller’s behalf. The new lawsuit was amended in Stamford Superior Court to seek damages on Stacey’s behalf as well.

Mueller and Stacey were domestic partners for 21 years and were joined in a civil union on Nov. 12, according to the lawsuit.

“Up until the law passed we were considered legal strangers,” Mueller said at a news conference at the couple’s Norwalk home. “We were scared, really scared, that Charlotte would have absolutely no rights.”

State Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, said the case shows how the Connecticut civil union law was meant to work.

“Under the law, this is a no-brainer,” said McDonald, one of the law’s authors. “Without a doubt any couple who is joined in a civil union has exactly the same rights under our law as a married couple, including the right to maintain action in the courts for loss of consortium.”

The couple said the painful treatments could have been avoided if the doctors read the original pathology report that correctly identified the cancer.