Hurting your teeth in an accident can have an impact on you in multiple ways. Not only are your teeth important to your ability to eat, but they also make up your appearance. Dental injuries are often grounds for a lawsuit, and the damages can be surprising.
You can sue for a dental injury on its own or as part of a larger injury (e.g., jaw or facial fractures). Damages for dental injuries include the cost of reasonable medical and dental care, but you can also get additional damages for the effect on your appearance. This plays into pain and suffering, and serious changes to your appearance from dental injuries can raise your pain and suffering damages.
For a free case review, call our New York personal injury attorneys at The Carrion Law Firm today at (718) 841-0083.
Can You File a Claim for Dental Injuries?
The grounds to sue for an injury case depend on what happened and who caused your injuries. If they violated a legal duty and caused your injuries because of it, it doesn’t matter what type of injuries you suffered; you can sue for any and all physical and mental injuries you faced. That definitely includes dental injuries.
Dental injuries are sometimes the only injury in the case. Think, for example, of a slip and fall where you knock out or crack a few teeth on the ground, but otherwise are okay.
However, it is more likely that a dental injury is just part of your total injuries. Broken jaws, orbitals, and other facial bones often result in broken or missing teeth, too.
Damages for Dental Care After an Injury
Our New York personal injury attorneys can include reasonable medical care costs – physical, medical, or dental – as damages if the care was specifically for the injuries from your accident. Many accidents involving mouth injuries result in lost teeth or damaged teeth that need to be replaced with implants, plates, and veneers. They may also result in other injuries that require braces, mouthguards, and other corrective devices.
Types of Care
This can actually mean you might need to see dentists, orthodontists, oral surgeons, and potentially other doctors who deal with bone and face injuries (e.g., maxillofacial surgeons, orthopedic surgeons). Each has different specialties and areas of care, and complex dental procedures often involve care from multiple experts.
For example, your dentist may be responsible for installing veneers, crowns, and false teeth, but an oral surgeon might do your implants, and a maxillofacial surgeon might help with your broken jaw.
Paying for Costs
Many of these procedures are quite expensive. The cost of a full set of veneers to replace serious dental damage is often in the four-figure or five-figure range. Surgical costs can be even higher if implants are needed.
Ultimately, the defendant should be the one to cover these costs, even if you have medical insurance, dental insurance, or car insurance that could cover your care. We can include these costs among other damages in your lawsuit.
Pain and Suffering Damages for Dental Injuries
Most cases allow for pain and suffering damages to be claimed. These account for (as the name implies) the physical pain you face, but also the mental and emotional suffering.
Dental pain can be exceptionally uncomfortable and often causes high pain and suffering damages. It can also last for some time, and you may need multiple rounds of procedures to repair serious injuries, which draws out the pain and suffering through rounds of healing, surgery, implants, etc.
On top of this, dental injuries can cause lost abilities and enjoyment. You may be eating through a straw for a while if your mouth is wired shut, and even after that, you might face difficulty chewing or enjoying foods you like. This has an impact that can be included in your pain and suffering.
Dental injuries also change your physical appearance, which can be distressing. Even if repairs are successful, you might not look the same after the injuries, which is also accounted for in pain and suffering damages.
There may also be ongoing care needs that make living with dental implants and veneers a hassle.
Calculating Pain and Suffering
In most cases, we take all of these factors and use them in coming up with one of two calculations for your pain and suffering claim.
The first option is the multiplier method, where your pain and suffering is rated from 1.5 to 5. Your other “economic” damages – medical bills, lost wages, etc. – are then multiplied by this value.
Alternatively, we can start with your daily income and adjust it based on the severity of your injuries to come up with a per diem value for pain and suffering. Then, we multiply it by the number of days you suffered or will suffer.
Ultimately, it is up to the jury to decide the final cost of your pain and suffering if your case goes to trial.
Does Insurance Cover Dental Injuries from an Accident?
Dental injuries might be covered in a few ways.
Any time you are injured in an accident, the person who caused your injuries should ultimately be the one to pay for your injuries. However, this often means reimbursing you for bills you were already charged for, given the time it takes to get to a settlement or trial win.
This means the defendant pays damages out of pocket or through their liability insurance. This could be homeowners or business insurance for an accident on their property or their liability coverage from their car insurance for an auto accident.
In the meantime, your dental injuries might be covered by a few different insurance policies:
- Your car insurance might pay for medical costs if your accident occurred in a crash.
- Your medical insurance could cover costs before a surgeon or other doctor.
- Your dental insurance could cover costs with a dentist or orthodontist.
It is up to your specific policies to determine what would be covered. However, insurance companies do not like having to pay when someone else caused your accident. This is especially true of Medicare and Medicaid.
Ultimately, even if health insurance, dental insurance, or car insurance paid up front, they want compensation, too. You should also be compensated in your lawsuit for copays, deductibles, or any other out-of-pocket expenses.
Call Our Personal Injury Attorneys in New York Today
Call the Carrion Law Firm at (718) 841-0083 for a free review of your case with our Queens personal injury attorneys.