Osceola County

(33) GREGORY HARTSUFF and MARJEAN HARTSUFF vs. J. MICHAEL LAYTON, D.M.D.

 

County/Docket #/Judge: Osceola / CI-2006-MP-1669 / Marshall Kest

 

Plaintiff(s) Attorney(s): William E. Ruffier of Dellecker, Wilson, et al., Orlando

 

Defendant(s) Attorney(s): Francis E. Pierce, III, of Mateer & Harbert, P.A., Orlando

 

Age/Sex/Occupation Of Plaintiff: Gregory Hartsuff: 49 / M / Maintenance Worker

 

Cause Of Injury: Dental Negligence/Extraction of Tooth. Plaintiff Gregory Hartsuff alleged that on March 29, 2002, he was struck in the mouth in an accident and had tooth #9, a front incisor, knocked out. He went to Defendant’s office in Kissimmee on April 2, 2002, and Defendant found that, in addition to the traumatic loss of tooth # 9, Plaintiff Gregory Hartsuff was missing thirteen other teeth as a result of poor dental care. The plan was to bond tooth #9 temporarily to teeth #8 and 10, adjacent teeth, until all the upper teeth could be pulled and an upper denture prepared. Tooth #9 was bonded and later came out and was re-bonded. On July 10, 2002, Plaintiff Gregory Hartsuff had teeth #8 and 10 removed, along with other upper teeth, and a denture was fitted.  There was no note in the chart as to what happened to tooth #9, which was now simply a temporary cosmetic appliance.

 

Plaintiff Gregory Hartsuff began complaining of respiratory difficulties in June 2002 and had more than twenty chest X-rays and chest CT scans taken between his last visit to Defendant in 2002 and November 1, 2005, which failed to demonstrate any foreign bodies in Plaintiff Gregory Hartsuff’s lungs. On December 28, 2005, a chest CT scan demonstrated five foreign bodies in Plaintiff Gregory Hartsuff’s lungs. Plaintiff Gregory Hartsuff had two lobes of his right lung removed on January 4, 2006, and a foreign body, identified as a tooth, was discovered in his lung tissue, and along with material attached to it, which Plaintiff Gregory Hartsuff alleged was bonding material.

 

Plaintiff Gregory Hartsuff alleged that the foreign body was tooth #9 and that it had bonding material attached to it. He alleged that Defendant dropped tooth #9 down his throat when he was sedated in the dental chair and that this led to years of pulmonary problems and ultimately his partial lobectomy.

 

Defendant alleged that he never dropped a tooth down Plaintiff Gregory Hartsuff’s throat, that three and one-half years of chest radiographs proved that there was no foreign body in Plaintiff Gregory Hartsuff’s lungs between the last visit to Defendant’s office and his chest CT of December 28, 2005, and that Plaintiff Gregory Hartsuff, by his own admission, was always awake during his visits to Defendant’s office and never experienced any aspiration episode.

 

Nature Of Injury: Gregory Hartsuff: Plaintiff had a portion of his lung removed due to a foreign body. The foreign body was not noted on numerous radiology scans throughout a three-year period and noticed only within a couple months of the surgical procedure to remove the portion of the lung.

 

Expert Witnesses:

Plaintiff's:

Edwin T. Parks, D.M.D., Dentistry, Indiana University of School of Dentistry, Indianapolis, IN

Jeffrey A. Plat, D.M.D., MS, Dental Materials, Indiana University School of Dentistry, Indianapolis, IN

 

Defendant's:

Frank J. Vertucci, D.M.D., Endodontics/Dentistry, Gainesville

 

Verdict: For the Defendant on May 8, 2009.

 

Editor’s Note: This was a five-day trial. The jury was composed of three males and three females. The jury deliberated for three hours and thirty minutes.