Court's ruling bites

The scales of justice need some recalibration, judging from a state Supreme Court decision issued last week.

For the purposes of a practical joke, an oral surgeon exploited the vulnerability of a patient under general anesthesia and had to pay her $250,000 as settlement. Then, he sued the insurance company that refused to defend his egregious behavior. As a result of the high court's ruling Thursday, he now gets back the $250,000, plus another $750,000 for damages and attorney fees. The jokester wins.

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of Robert Woo, who had sued Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. The company refused to defend Woo under his policy because it said the not-very-funny practical joke Woo played on his patient did not qualify as "dental services."

Woo's surgical assistant had asked him to replace two of her teeth with implants. Woo, who often teased the assistant about her pot-bellied pig, had the implants made — as well as two extras in the shape of boar tusks. While the assistant was sedated, Woo removed her oxygen mask, put the tusks in her mouth and took pictures, some with her eyes pried open.

The employee was so unnerved when she saw the photos, she did not return to work and sued.

The most stunning aspect of the decision was the majority's opinion: "We conclude that Fireman's had a duty to defend under Woo's professional liability provision because the insertion of boar tusk flippers in [the patient's] mouth conceivably fell within the policy's broad definition of the practice of dentistry."

Whoa. The general practice of dentistry includes humiliating vulnerable patients?

Thank Justices Mary Fairhurst, Richard Sanders, Bobbe Bridge, Tom Chambers and Susan Owens for that wisdom. They overturned a state Appeals Court ruling that sided with Fireman's.

Maybe patients should insist on having chaperones in surgery to look out for their dignity, since the high court's majority doesn't think health professionals have to.