Jurors side with dentist in open margin dispute

David Baugher//June 20, 2023//

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David Baugher//June 20, 2023//

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Christian County jurors held a dentist not liable for a patient’s complaints about a dental crown and bridgework.

“Our expert did a really good job and I think the jury believed that there was no open margin,” said Kristen O’Neal of Malkmus Law Firm.

O’Neal defended dentist Scott Larsen from the suit filed by patient Don Powers, who alleged Larsen was negligent in leaving open margins” — spaces in the patient’s dental work — on two different dental crowns he placed.

O’Neal argued that no open margin existed.

“Our expert was able to show with the imaging what an open margin would look like on an x-ray,” she said, “and using other images of what an open margin looks like, he was able to show the jury from this imaging how it looked different.”

She said her expert also noted other problems with the plaintiff’s claims.

“If there had been an open margin for as long as plaintiff claimed there was, there would be other things you would be seeing from the tooth,” she said. “There would have been a lot of pain associated with it. There was really no evidence of that in the record.”

She also noted that, even if an open margin had existed, it would have been acceptable if it was not meant to be permanent.

“Their expert admitted that if it was just a temporary solution and Dr. Larsen intended to leave it as such, it was not negligent,” she said. “[Larsen] placed a crown on one of the prepared teeth in anticipation of going back and doing something different that was a more permanent solution.”

Hunter Altic of Altic Law, who represented the plaintiff, declined to comment.

Defense verdict

Medical malpractice