Re: should I sue the dental clinic

Alexander Vasserman DDS wrote:
In the dental industry there is no requirement to maintain malpractice
insurance.


This is true, there is no legal requirement. However, without the
insurance, a dentist who loses a malpractice case runs the risk of a
huge financial judgement against him. This causes financial problems,
or possibly can lead to bankruptcy.


When I was in Dental School I ran into 2 attorneys that were
trying to get in as patients and they were talking about dental
malpractice insurance, they said they could not understand why dentist
maintain malpractice insurance.


In order to gain protection in the case of financial loss. Also, in the
case of a malpractice suit, the insurance will generally pay for the
legal defense costs as well. This allows the dentist to continue
working for his patients and earning a living for his family while the
case slowly grinds its way through the legal system.



They said that if a dentist did not
maintain this insurance no attorney would take the case even if it was
not on contingency basis since the practice could be operating as a
corporation which is renting all the equipment and deducting the
payments as an expense thus transfering income to the dentist while
sheltering liability. An even if a case was filed the corporation could
be dissolved and a new one formed the next day.


These attorneys were very badly informed. In medicine and dentistry,
there is no corporate sheltering of liability. Malpractice lawsuits,
under the law, "penetrate the corporate veil."

Licensed practitioners of the healing arts are responsible for their
own actions without regard to the existence or nonexistence of a
corporation. The license to practice medicine or dentistry is issued to
an individual, not to a corporation, so it is that licensed individual
who is legally and financially responsible for the treatment he
renders.

- dentaldoc

.

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