One question that I am constantly being asked by dental claim clients is how one dental legal claim can be worth so much more (or sometimes less) than another case when the facts are very similar on the face of it and the claim is often against the same dentist.
One dental claim client rang me to ask why I had advised her to settle her dental claim for £2500 when in another case which had been reported in the local press against the same dentist settled for £6000.
In her case, she had lost a single back tooth as a result of a poor root canal filling and the tooth was non-functional meaning that she had no opposing teeth to chew against. There was little that could be done to replace the tooth due to her age and the condition of her teeth. I explained that the compensation offered of £2500 was more than reasonable, especially as she had no special damages or out of pocket expenses to claim for. Her claim was based on the loss of a single back tooth which according to the Judicial College guidelines was worth between £960 and £1500.
My client complained that this offer of £2500 to settle her dental claim was well below other cases that she had heard and read about in the local press. I explained that each dental case was to be taken on its own merits as each claim is different despite looking the same from the outside. After some research, it appeared that the other claim against the same dentist consisted of the loss of a front tooth (which is worth considerably more than the loss of a back tooth) at between £1930 and £3460 according to the guidelines. The tooth would have likely needed to be replaced with a dental implant at a cost in the region of £2500. This would have resulted in the claim being worth in the region of £6000.
There is a real danger that dental claim clients can get a false representation of what their dental claim is realistically worth by reading about other cases which look the same from the outside and are often against the same dentist but revolve around different facts.