After three years of litigation, we were recently awarded a dental malpractice lawsuit settlement against an oral surgeon with respect to his treatment of our client and the oral surgeon’s placement of dental implants into our client’s lower jaw. The settlement occurred right before the case was scheduled for trial.
To have a successful dental malpractice case, you must be able to prove three elements: 1) the dentist or oral surgeon departed from good and accepted dental practice: 2) that this departure caused our client to sustain an injury; and 3) that our client’s injury is permanent in nature.
In the case we recently settled, the implants placed by the oral surgeon had been negligently inserted on top of our client’s nerve, which caused our client to sustain paresthesia of his lower left jaw.
It was our intention at trial to prove through expert testimony and medical records that the oral surgeon failed to properly place these implants by using the guidance of a CT scan, which would have been able to map out exactly where our client’s nerves were in his jaw to ensure that the implants would not be placed anywhere near those nerves.
We would have also been able to prove that after the implants were placed and our client immediately made complaints of numbness and burning in his left lower jaw, that the implants should have been loosened or immediately removed.
There is a very short window of time to address these types of complaints.
Instead of addressing the complaints and making an appropriate referral to a nerve specialist, the complaints were ignored by the oral surgeon, which caused our client to sustain this permanent injury of paresthesia.
After many months of negotiation, we were able to secure a six figure settlement for our client and avoid the risks and expenses associated with a dental malpractice trial.
“Dental Malpractice Settlement: Placement of Dental Implants” was written by Michael S. Mosscrop