Carpenter v. Daar

Excerpt

The plaintiff sought to recover damages from the defendant dentist, D, and his business entity M Co., for medical malpractice in connection with a dental procedure performed on the plaintiff by D. The plaintiff alleged in his complaint that D held himself out as a specialist in endodontics and attached to his complaint a good faith certificate from what he alleged was a similar health care provider, S, an endodontist. The defen- dants moved to dismiss on the ground that the opinion letter did not comply with the requirements of the statute (§ 52-190a) because S was not a similar health care provider as defined by statute (§ 52-184c). The defendants attached an affidavit of D, in which he attested that he is a general dentist. The plaintiff objected to the motion to dismiss and attached a supplemental affidavit of S, which further elaborated on S's qualifications as a similar health care provider. The trial court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss on the ground that the plaintiff had failed to provide an opinion letter from a similar health care provider as required by §§ 52-190a and 52-184c. Specifically, because the plaintiff had attached an opinion letter authored by S, a specialist in endodontics, and D was a general dentist, the trial court determined that S's opinion letter was not that of a similar health care provider because D was not a specialist as defined by § 52-184c (c) and, thus, the opinion letter was required to be authored by a general dentist. Moreover, the court concluded that there was no information to establish that S had been involved in the teaching or practice of general dentistry in the five year period before the procedure so as to be a similar health care provider as defined by § 52-184c (b). The court rendered judgment in favor of the defendants and the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held: 1. The defendants could not prevail on their unpreserved claim that the trial court should not have considered the supplemental affidavit su