£40,000 Dental Negligence Compensation for Tooth Loss Following 20 Years of Poor Treatment

A woman in her mid-forties came to us after losing teeth to 20 years of poor private dental treatment. Around a dozen teeth were affected, and much of the treatment was far older than the usual three-year time limit for bringing a claim.

We had the whole treatment history reviewed by an independent expert, took a clear position on limitation and secured £40,000 in dental negligence compensation, plus her legal costs.

How 20 Years of Poor Dental Treatment Led to Tooth Loss

Our client saw the same private dentist for 20 years. She attended regularly, paid privately throughout and followed every piece of advice she was given.

By the time he left the practice, she had lost five teeth and had a number of others root filled. A new dentist was shocked at the state of her mouth. Most, if not all, of the root canal treatments were defective. They needed redoing, or the teeth needed to come out.

The Impact of Dental Negligence on Our Client

Around 12 teeth were affected, with a risk of losing more. She faced lengthy and unpleasant restorative work, including further root fillings and dental implants.

The effect went well beyond her teeth. She developed significant psychological symptoms from the treatment itself, the loss of several teeth and the repeated invasive surgery that followed. She needed medication and therapy.

She is self-employed and found it difficult to keep her business going through all of this.

The Challenges of Bringing a Long-Term Dental Negligence Claim

This was a claim about 20 years of treatment by one dentist, involving around a dozen teeth. Working out what had gone wrong, when, and what each failure had cost her made the claim complicated to formulate.

Limitation was a live issue. A claim normally has to be brought within three years, and much of the treatment was far older than that. The defendant made no admissions and no denials at any stage.

How TJL Solicitors Investigated the Dental Negligence Claim

We instructed a Consultant in Restorative Dentistry to review the whole treatment history. He found the care over 20 years had been very poor: a failure to take regular x-rays, a failure to monitor and treat decay, and a number of defective root fillings. Several teeth had been lost avoidably, and more were at risk.

On limitation, our position was that our client had no idea anything was wrong until the dentist left the practice and a new dentist told her about the problems. That put her date of knowledge no earlier than the point she was given that advice, and the claim within time.

We drafted and sent a detailed letter of claim to the dentist. The claim passed to his insurers and then his solicitors, and we negotiated the settlement with them.

£40,000 Compensation Settlement for Dental Negligence

The claim settled for £40,000 plus her legal costs, around two years and ten months from instruction to settlement.

The settlement was made without any admission of liability. It gave her the funds to have the restorative treatment she needed and to get her smile back.

Russell Sutton, Partner, ran the case throughout.

Can You Claim for Negligent Dental Treatment from Years Ago?

People often assume that because they kept going back, and because they paid privately, the treatment must have been sound. Sometimes the first person to tell you otherwise is the dentist who takes over.

If a new dentist has raised concerns about work done over a long period, the age of that work does not automatically end the claim. What matters is when you first knew, or reasonably could have known, that something had gone wrong. Every case turns on its own facts and its own evidence, and we can give you an early view on yours.

‘This was a challenging claim to pursue and took careful investigation, but we were confident we would be able to gather the evidence needed to succeed for our client and with the help of our expert dentist, a great outcome was achieved.’

– Russell Sutton, Partner