Fired trucker’s malpractice claim filed too late to collect from insurer, Nevada Supreme Court rules [Las Vegas Sun]

June 29--CARSON CITY -- A Las Vegas truck driver who lost his job due to the malpractice of his dentist has now lost his ability to collect a $480,260 judgment from the wayward dentist's former insurer.

The Nevada Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Glenn Williams filed his claim with Physicians Insurance Co. of Wisconsin after the expiration of the medical malpractice policy of Dr. Hamid Ahmadi.

In 2002 Ahmadi was performing a root canal and used street cocaine to deaden the pain to Williams' gums.

A short time later, Williams sideswiped a gas meter at a home while backing up his cement truck. The company required him to take a drug test. It came back positive despite the insistence of Williams he never used cocaine. He lost his job and his 20-year career as a union truck driver.

Ahmadi acknowledged the root canal medication may have caused the positive drug test.

The Supreme Court said in the meantime "Dr. Ahmadi's personal and professional life had spun out of control." He was arrested in California in possession of two ounces of cocaine and charged with drug trafficking.

His license to practice in Nevada was suspended. And he was arrested in Washington for prescribing painkillers to himself in phony patient names.

Ahmadi's malpractice policy expired April 14 2004. And Williams, learning of the drug arrests, filed his malpractice suit against Ahmadi the following day.

Earlier, on Feb. 6, 2004, while the policy was still in force, Williams sent Ahmadi a demand letter by certified mail. Ahmadi did not respond nor did he notify the insurer of the demand letter or of the malpractice suit that followed.

He gained a default judgment and his lawyers filed a claim with the insurance company several months later.

District Judge Douglas Herndon granted a summary judgment in favor of Williams against the insurer. The district court agreed with Williams that the news accounts of Ahmadi's disintegration, combined with Ahmadi's license suspension, gave Physicians Insurance constructive notice of a potential claim during the policy period.

The Supreme Court disagreed.

"For coverage a claim must be made and reported within the policy period," Justice Kristina Pickering Williams wrote in the court's opinion.

The court further found the news accounts of the dentist's problems did not constitute a claim for a malpractice payment.

A spokeswoman for the state Board of Dental Examiners said Ahmadi's license was revoked in 2004 and his later effort for reinstatement was denied.

During the board's investigation, one staff member reported seeing Ahmadi cook and smoke cocaine at work and another employee said Ahmadi was subject to weight loss and bizarre mood swings.

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