Dentists Suits

In what a lawyer called the largest dental malpractice judgment in California history, a jury has awarded a Palmdale woman $1.2 million from a dentist she said removed all her teeth, when they simply needed cleaning. Dr. Leoneed Gordon frightened her with a diagnosis that her teeth were so rotten they would fall out in a few months, complained Linda Jeffery.

In what a lawyer called the largest dental malpractice judgment in California history, a jury has awarded a Palmdale woman $1.2 million from a dentist she said removed all her teeth when they simply needed cleaning. Dr. Leoneed Gordon frightened her with a diagnosis that her teeth were so rotten they would fall out in a few months, Linda Jeffery said.

A jury rejected a man's claim that he contracted the AIDS virus in 1989 while his dentist extracted some of his teeth. Jurors said the dentist, Anthony E. Breglio of Springfield, Mass., was negligent in how he treated the dental tools used on James Sharpe, 49. But they said the negligence did not cause Sharpe's infection, and they awarded no damages.