A 60-year-old man Japanese man sued a Tokyo hospital after discovering that he was switched at birth and lived a life of poverty because of it. The man, who wants to remain anonymous, was accidentally switched at the hospital and grew up in poverty while the other man lived a life of luxury, the Telegraph reports.

The man lost his "father" at the age of 2 and endured a lifetime of hardship while the woman he thought was his mother struggled to raise him and his three older brothers. He grew up in a one bedroom apartment and was forced to study at night-school while he worked at a factory during the day.

He eventually found a job a driver for a transportation company and now takes care of his non-biological brothers, one of whom suffered a stroke. The other man went through life with private tutors, a university education and is now the head of the family's property firm. His brothers also work for major companies, according to reports.

The switch happened in 1953 at San-Ikukai Hospital in Tokyo's Sumida Ward. The midwife reportedly took both newborn babies away to be bathed and returned them to the wrong mothers. According to the Telegraph, questions were brought up recently when the wealthy family felt the man didn't look like his brothers.

In 2011, they requested hospital the hospital records and DNA tests confirmed their suspicions.  

"I wondered how on earth this could have happened," the man said. "I could not believe it. To be honest, I did not want to accept it."

The man mistakenly given to the poorer family sued the hospital and a Tokyo District Court ordered San-Ikukai hospital to pay him 38 million yen (over $370,000).

"The links between the man and his real parents were severed and the man was forced to grow up in a poor home," Judge Masatoshi Miyasaka said in the ruling. "The mental anguish he went through was enormous. There were far-reaching differences between the two family environments and the plaintiff suffered an unreasonable loss as a result."

Before the error was known the man's biological parents died.

"It is impossible to assess the scale of the pain and disappointment both the parents and the man had to suffer, as they were deprived of opportunities to enjoy their parent-child relationship forever," Miyasaka said.

"I might have had a different life," the man said. "I want [the hospital] to roll back the clock to the day that I was born."