By:
Christina Hall
Detroit Free Press
A Macomb County jury awarded a county man $2.75 million in a medical malpractice lawsuit in which a dental procedure landed the man in the hospital with what his attorney said was a “massive hemorrhage” in his mouth.
The jury took 90 minutes to reach its verdict and find in favor of Giorgio Webster after a three-day trial last week, according to Circuit Court records.
The lawsuit was filed in 2019 against Dr. Jeffrey Osguthorpe and Summit Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, P.C.
Keith Felty, an attorney representing Osguthorpe and the practice, declined comment Friday. Osguthorpe was not listed as part of the team at the practice during a check of its website Thursday.
The jury awarded Webster $1.375 million in pain and suffering and related damages, including the loss or impairment related to difficulty chewing and numbness of the mouth; $1.307 million in pain and suffering and related damages in the future, and $68,000 in damages for medical expenses, according to the jury form.
“In a trial that was postponed numerous times due to the (COVID-19) pandemic, the stakes were high for my client, who endured serious trauma at the hands of an oral surgeon who failed to follow established standard of care guidelines,” A. Vince Colella, an attorney who represented Webster, said in a release.
He said his firm detailed “how such medical malpractice could not go unacknowledged.”
Webster, 32, started receiving medical care with Osguthorpe in December 2017 and consulted with him about his wisdom teeth. X-ray imaging was done, and a radiolucency was noted. In February 2018, a CT scan without contrast of Webster’s jaw was taken, which revealed a “slightly lobulated apparent soft tissue density mass,” according to the lawsuit.
It states Osguthorpe did not request additional imaging “despite identification from the radiologist in the CT scan report that the imaging study was not sufficiently detailed and/or defined and that MRI studies with contrast were recommended.” He removed one of Webster’s wisdom teeth in April 2018 and four days later scheduled an “incisional biopsy” for the soft tissue mass, for which Webster consented.