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Medical Malpractice Law Appellate Court Opinion

by Booth, George

 

AC39325 - Doyle v. Aspen Dental of Southern CT, PC (Dental malpractice; motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction; "This appeal arises out of a dental malpractice action brought by the plaintiffs, Kate L. Doyle and Brendan Doyle, against the defendants, Aspen Dental of Southern CT, PC, and Aspen Dental Management, Inc. (Aspen Dental), and Brandon Kang, DDS, in connection with a dental implant procedure performed by Kang. The plaintiff appeals from the judgment rendered by the trial court dismissing her action against the defendant on the basis of her failure to comply with General Statutes § 52-190a (a), which required the plaintiff to attach to her complaint an opinion letter authored by a "similar health care provider," as defined in General Statutes § 52-184c (c). On appeal, the plaintiff argues that the court erred in concluding that the opinion letter written by a general dentist was not authored by a "similar health care provider" and that an opinion letter from an oral and maxillofacial surgeon was required instead. In support of this claim, the plaintiff alleges that she had no method of discovering or verifying that the defendant was an oral and maxillofacial surgeon in addition to being a licensed general dentist because there was no authentic public record from which the plaintiff could have determined that the defendant had training and experience as an oral and maxillofacial surgeon. We conclude that the court properly determined that because the defendant did, in fact, have training and experience in the specialty of oral and maxillofacial surgery, the opinion letter submitted by the plaintiff was not authored by a "similar health care provider." Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.")