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August 15, 2007
Ethics and Legalities in Dentistry - The Case of the Dentist Joker and the Assistant's Pigs
A really bizarre case has appeared in the legal literature. In this case a dentist performed surgery on one of his assistants who was also a patient. The assistant had a hobby or outside interest of caring for pot-bellied pigs. The surgery included the placement of temporary implants. As a practical joke, while the assistant/patient was under anesthetic, the dentist placed temporary implants of boars teeth, took photos, and then removed the boars teeth and continued with placing the actual temporary implants.
As you might have guessed, when the assistant saw the photos, she did not find it at all funny, which was the beginning of the legal cases. The dentist expected that his insurance company would cover him when he was sued, however they declined. He settled out of court with the assistant, but then sued his insurance company for not covering him. He won. He not only won, but he was granted the entire sum of money he paid the assistant plus three times that for mental distress.
This looks to be a very interesting case. More details and information are included in the following two FindLaw articles.
Scales, Adam. Can This Pig Fly? How A Dentist Assaulted A Patient And Made A Million Dollars: Part One in a Two-Part Series. Findlaw Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2007.
http://writ.lp.findlaw.com/commentary/20070814_scales.html
Scales, Adam. Can This Pig Fly? How A Dentist Assaulted A Patient And Made A Million Dollars: Part Two of a Two-Part Series. Findlaw Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20070815_scales.html
Posted by pfa at August 15, 2007 10:19 AM