A dental implant is a titanium screw that is literally screwed into the bone that acts as a foundation for either a bridge, or porcelain teeth. Once the bone has healed, a post is placed on top of the implant, and then a cap or crown is put on the post. Or, a fixed bridge is made and then attached to the posts.
In this man's case, the implants were not properly put in his jaw, they were too close together and angled incorrectly. This dentist put an implant into the patient's sinus and failed to recognize it. He also created a fistula into the sinus and despite two attempts to fix it, could not, and never sent the patient to a specialist to fix it.
The patient also suffered nerve injury since the dentist never obtained a pre-operative CT scan to evaluate the patient's bone and nerve structure. One final point: The dentist inexplicably threw out 20-40 intra-operative x-rays, claiming he did not need them.
On the day of jury selection, I was able to successfully obtain a settlement of $350,000.
$350,000