An appellate court has upheld a jury verdict requiring a Pennsylvania dentist to pay $11.5 million for purportedly not evaluating a patient’s tongue sore that ended up being cancerous, according to multiple recently published news stories.
A three-member panel of the Pennsylvania Superior Court rejected an appeal filed by Dr. Linda Shen of Shen Smiles and Drums Dental Lab in Drums, PA. Shen filed an appeal, claiming that the 2024 jury verdict and monetary award were invalid because the evidence failed to show negligence and a witness was permitted to testify about her practice not keeping legitimate patient records, according to the stories.
In 2021, Mary Heffelfinger, a patient of Shen’s for nearly a decade, filed a lawsuit against the dentist and her practice, accusing her of a delayed diagnosis.
Over a seven-month period, Heffelfinger alleged she saw Shen eight times to discuss a sore on her tongue. However, the patient claimed that Shen never referred her for a biopsy.
Furthermore, Heffelfinger claimed that Shen’s inaction led her lesion to develop into stage IV squamous cell carcinoma, requiring her to undergo chemotherapy and have part of her tongue removed.
After Heffelfinger received her diagnosis, she allegedly requested her dental records from Shen. The dentist reportedly stated that she would only release her dental records if Heffelfinger signed a liability waiver. Then the patient alleged that Shen intentionally withheld or destroyed the records when Heffelfinger refused to sign the waiver.
Heffelfinger claimed that Shen withheld the records because she knew she was responsible for delaying her diagnosis. However, Shen purportedly attempted to provide Heffelfinger with her records but couldn’t find them. Shen accused Heffelfinger’s sister, an employee at her dental practice, of stealing the records.
At the three-day jury trial in February 2024, Shen testified that her treatment was not negligent, and Shen claimed that she referred Heffelfinger to a specialist to address the lesion and that the delay in her cancer diagnosis was due to her not following doctors’ instructions.
