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Hobbs Giroday Podcast featuring David Hobbs

Dental Negligence

With  David Hobbs

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Show Notes Episode 7:

  • While this episode is specifically about dental negligence, almost everything discussed applies to medical negligence – whether it is a dentist or other health care provider.
  • Dental negligence is a legal discussion, but also involves the complexity of providing health care services and advice. It’s a mixture of legal thinking and opinions of experts.
  • When you visit a dentist, they give you advice. This advice is required to meet a certain standard of practice.
  • Negligence in a general sense is providing treatment or giving advice that is:
    • below standard of practice and alsocauses an injury.
  • So, to have negligence you can sue for, you have to have bothsubstandard advice, treatment, and an injury.
  • It is important to remember that treatment carries a risk. A poor outcome doesn’t mean there was negligence.
  • It is important to conduct due diligence if considering suing any professional.
    • These cases are complex and usually aggressively defended by the insurance company.
  • The first step is to gather all the records involved, then have a trained expert look through the records and give an opinion on whether you are the victim of negligence.
    • This advice will determine if further due diligence is required and if you should move forward with a law suit.
  • Need to be mindful of limitation periods.
  • In the health care field, there are ‘colleges’ that regulate the health care professionals.
  • Colleges do not adjudicate whether a health care professional has been negligent, they look at public complaints to determine if further training or discipline is required.
  • While an investigation by a college does shed light on whether there are issues, what occurs in the regulatory environment is not admissible in court.
    • A legal action against a dentist has to be brought on its own evidence.
  • In any action you will need an expert’s report.
    • This report needs to be prepared according to the rules of court.
    • It will contain opinions on the relevant standards of practice, where the conduct has deviated, and what kind of damages have been caused.
      • One area that doesn’t rely on expert opinion is the area of obtaining informed consent.
    • If you establish liability for negligence, then you have to prove your damages. These include:
      • Pain and suffering;
      • Unnecessary expenses;
      • Loss of income; and
      • Loss of earning capacity.
    • All damages have to be quantified and may require further expert opinion.

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