Survey of Brazilian judicial decisions with regard to the civil responsability of the dental surgeon in the Superior Court of Justice

Abstract

The civil liability is the institute that is bound to the duty of not causing unjust damage, providing the search for indemnity for the damages suffered, which can be applied to the dentist. This work aimed to raise and investigate the jurisprudence and monocratic decisions in the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) that deal with the responsibility of the dentist. This is a qualitative and quantitative research, with a descriptive character, carried out on the STJ platform. The sample consisted of 5 jurisprudences and 20 monocratic decisions to extract the following information: trial date; state arising from the action; type of action; type of sentence - for or against the Dental Surgeon; type of obligation - means or result; foundation - subjective or objective theory; type of error in relation to the legal figure of fault - malpractice, negligence or imprudence; and the specialties involved. It was verified the presence of judicial decisions in the STJ related to compensation actions filed by patients against dental surgeons, which mostly deal with the subjective theory of responsibility in monocratic decisions (75%; n = 15) and in jurisprudence (n = 4), originating in several Brazilian states and with Surgery and Implantology as the most demanded dental specialties. The legal figure of guilt was observed in only three monocratic decisions and most of the decisions were unfavorable to the dental surgeon. Thus, this research serves as a warning to dentists of the existence of indemnity actions in the STJ, which denote a long, costly and exhausting process.