A U.S. judge denied a request for a new trial, upholding a verdict to have a malpractice case thrown out against an orthodontist accused of providing negligent dental treatment and permanently altering a patient's teeth and jaw, according to court records.
On January 23, Judge M. Douglas Harpool of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Southwestern Division, denied the request for a new trial by Jill Nation of Kansas in a case against Dr. Thomas E. Moore of Westrock Orthodontics in Nevada, MO. In November 2024, a jury reached a verdict in favor of Moore.
In a lawsuit filed in July 2024, Nation claims that when she was 15, she was in a softball accident that led her to lose her two front teeth. She went to Moore for treatment.
Nation claims that Moore guided her to undertake a multiyear plan to get braces so that her left incisor would eventually shift to take the place of her missing front tooth. He reportedly decided on this plan instead of replacing the missing tooth, according to the complaint.
Once the left incisor became the front tooth, Nation alleged that Moore said he would refer her to an oral surgeon to reconstruct the left incisor to appear more akin to a natural front tooth.
Nation's treatment started in 2015, and the final adjustment of her braces occurred around November 1, 2021. Around November 9, 2021, Moore and Rock Dental Missouri entered into an agreement with Westrock, a group of dental and orthodontics clinics operating in Missouri and Arkansas. Westrock bought Rock Dental and hired Moore as a Westrock employee, according to the lawsuit.
After approximately six years of extensive dental work, Moore purportedly referred Nation to a clinician to address her cosmetic dentistry needs. The clinician was reportedly "horrified" by Moore's dental work and said the dental treatment permanently altered Nation's bite, teeth, jaw, and skull, leaving her with pain, distortion, and dysfunction. This dentist reportedly advised Nation that she would need extensive dental work to fix the permanent pain and disfigurement, according to the suit.
Moore's defense was that Nation's smile outcome was a result of noncompliance and missed appointments.
