By STEPHEN SEITZ
Special to the Eagle Times
WOODSTOCK, Vt. —After several discussions behind closed doors on Friday morning, attorneys for Springfield resident Michele Griffith and Dr. Jon Mozaffari ended a lawsuit under which Griffith claimed Mozaffari’s alleged negligence resulted in her suffering from mouth cancer for several years. Mozaffari is the owner of Greater Falls Dentistry in Bellows Falls, Vermont.
Details of the agreement were not disclosed.
“All I can say is that we’ve reached a settlement,” Michael Hanley, Griffith’s attorney, said.
In her initial complaint, filed in 2015, Griffith accused Mozaffari of failing to monitor a lesion discovered on the floor of her mouth, discovered in June 2010. The complaint alleges that the lesion never went away, and, three years later, was discovered to be cancerous.
That led to several surgeries on Griffith’s jaw and a regimen of chemotherapy and radiation. As a result of the surgery, Griffith’s face was disfigured. She was left with only one of her original teeth, and is limited to a diet of soft foods only.
Griffith did not ask for specific damages, according to the complaint.
In Mozaffari’s defense, attorney John Green argued that the lesion discovered by Mozaffari was not cancerous at that time. Mozaffari had diagnosed the lesion as a canker sore. The cancer, he said, came later, the result of Griffith’s heavy smoking. He also claimed that Griffith did not follow up with Mozaffari.
The settlement was not announced in open court. Griffith and Mozaffari left the courtroom before they could be approached for comment.
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