Legal Question in Medical Malpractice in California
Is it Medical Malpractice (Failure to Treat) if a patient (that had made the Dental appointment by telephone previously) shows up to their Dental appointment, checks in with the receptionist, and is admitted in the dentist room, is laying on the patient bed for 10 minutes, and then the dental assistant walks in and tells the patient that the dentist cannot perform dental work on the patient, because that dentist has to leave the dental office to go to another dental office in another city to treat other dental patients? The patient sustained emotional distress and continuing toothache because the dentist breached the agreement that he was supposed to perform dental work on that scheduled appointment.
1 Answer from Attorneys
No. It's not malpractice. It's a scheduling snafu.