San Mateo Dental Malpractice Lawyer

Our offices specialize in cases involving negligent dental treatment that fall below the standard of care and include claims involving temporary or permanent nerve damage or nerve injury, improper dental implants, root canals, surgical extractions, failure to diagnose, and other negligent claims. Our office has litigated numerous dental malpractice cases that involve permanent dental injuries and improper dental treatment.

Dental providers are expected to use the skill and care that a reasonably careful dental professional would have used in similar circumstances in the surrounding area of where they practice. These dental professionals include dentists, orthodontists, oral surgeons, periodontists, and other specialists that provide dental care.

The skill and care that reasonably careful dental providers use is referred to as the “standard of care” and our office routinely handles cases involving dental treatment that fall below this standard. The standard is determined by the surrounding area of where the dental provider practices, such as cities in San Mateo County (Redwood City, Foster City, etc.), San Francisco, Alameda County (Hayward, Livermore, Pleasanton, etc.), Santa Clara (Palo Alto, San Jose, etc.), and others. Therefore, it is important to have a local lawyer handling these claims.

Case Study by GFF

Galine, Frye, Fitting & Frangos recently represented a young woman who suffered a permanent nerve injury after an improper extraction procedure was performed by a local dentist. The dentist’s care of our client caused her to suffer a lingual nerve injury because the nerve was severed when the tooth was extracted improperly.

The dentist’s treatment of our client was below the standard of care because: (1) he performed the procedure without performing necessary diagnostic testing; (2) he should have referred the extraction to a specialist given the location of the tooth and its proximity to a nerve that runs along the jaw; (2) he utilized an extraction process that caused him to extract the tooth whole, rather than dissect it and remove it piece by piece, despite its close location to a nerve that runs along the jaw; and other improper dental care.

The resulting injury to our client was that she had tongue numbness, tooth numbness, pain and discomfort in her teeth and jaw, could not distinguish between hot and cold, could not distinguish the taste of sour or sweet, and will likely suffer from these circumstances for the rest of her life.

We filed a complaint alleging dental malpractice and professional malpractice and sought compensation on behalf of our client. After almost a year of litigation, including discovery, depositions of experts, and law and motion work, we were able to obtain her fair compensation on the eve of trial.

Another case we recently handled involved a failure to diagnose by the treating dentist. Our client had a cancerous lesion in his mouth that went undetected by his treating dentist. His dentist’s failure to recognize the cancerous lesion and failure to refer the case to a specialist for further diagnosis, caused our client to have significant painful and disfiguring surgical excisions in order to remove the cancer. Had the cancer been discovered earlier, the medical treatment would have been less invasive and less traumatic. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

Dental malpractice cases, especially serious injuries that may have caused a permanent condition, require expertise in the dental field. Our lawyers have the necessary skill and knowledge to evaluate your case and fight for fair and reasonable compensation.