Cook v. Yager

As here pertinent, plaintiffs petition, which was filed on May 23, 1966, alleged that on December 11, 1964, he consulted defendant dentist with respect to his dental problem; that defendant informed plaintiff that treatment would require the fitting of a partial denture which would necessitate the extraction of several teeth; that plaintiff acquiesced in defendants proposed course of treatment and defendant thereupon subjected plaintiff to an oral surgical procedure "in initiating his planned regimen of treatment of plaintiffs condition"; that defendant was guilty of culpable negligence in performing oral surgery on plaintiff not only on December 1s1964, but also on February 5, 1965, "without taking, prior to performing said oral surgical procedures, any history of plaintiffs past or current condition of health, nor make any inquiry whatsoever thereunto of his patient, plaintiff herein, or of his patients physician"; that this omission "was the direct and proximate cause of plaintiff sustaining and suffering a foreseeable [sic] and avoidable complication of the surgical procedures performed by defendant, which complication [subacute bacterial endocarditis] endangered plaintiffs life and caused him to undergo intensive and expensive hospitalization and medical care, and which incapacitated him from his usual employment for one third of a year, which permanently aggravated a pre-existing cardiac valvular lesion as a result of which plaintiff must stay on regular and periodic prophylastic medications for the remainder of his natural life"; "that the illness he suffered as a consequence of defendants neglect of ordinary professional care and caution has seriously and substantially reduced his life expectancy," etc.; and that he has been damaged to the extent of $153,479.10.