Huh

I thought the insurance company got screwed here, but a quick survey of folks I know seems to suggest I'm the only one.

Quick recap:

1) Dentist plays a prank on assistant by putting fake tusks in her mouth and taking a picture before finishing some kind tooth-replacement operation.

2) Assistant quits and sues dentist.

3) The insurance company refuses to cover the claim, saying that it wasn't a normal business activity.

4) The dentist and assistant settle, netting the assistant $250,000.

5) Dentist sues insurers, and a few appeals later, wins a million bucks from them:

In a sprightly 5-4 decision, Supreme Court Justice Mary Fairhurst wrote that Woo's practical joke was an integral, if odd, part of the assistant's dental surgery and "conceivably" should trigger the professional liability coverage of his policy.

I hope, at the very least, his premiums go up.

Does anyone else think the insurance company got screwed here?

posted by Beetle Aurora Drake 7/27/2007 07:48:00 PM #
Comments (3)

. . .

Comments:

Sounds to me like doing work on an assistant is part of normal business activity for a dentist. The fact that he played a joke on her is a dumb mistake on his part, but that is exactly why doctors pay a shitload in insurance.

# posted by  Anonymous : 1:41 PM, July 28, 2007

 

Normally, I think of mistakes as things that are done unintentionally. Like, "oops, I left a scalpel in the patient when I sewed her up," rather than "oops, the scalpel I deliberately left in the patient when I sewed her up as a gag led to problems I wasn't expecting."

The fact that it occurred during a "normal business activity" doesn't strike me as reason enough to consider it part of that normal business activity, any more than stealing her wallet while she was under would be.

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 2:31 PM, July 28, 2007

 

I guess it comes down to the actual terms of his insurance contract.

# posted by  Anonymous : 3:09 PM, July 28, 2007

 

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