816-326-2968KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Last month, a Jackson County judge ruled in favor of Brian Jenkins’ former patients; each of the 20 people suing him was awarded $473,445, according to court records.
All made claims that Jenkins caused permanent damage and/or disfigurement after dental procedures at his dental office in Independence, Wright Dentures and Implants.
Wright Dentures and Implants suddenly closed back in 2024.
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“They just left me hanging. I called multiple times. They said, ‘We don’t have anything that could get them out.’ I asked, ‘Do I just break them out and then restart?’ Then they wouldn’t answer calls, they wouldn’t answer emails, or anything. I showed up at the office, and that’s when I realized the doors were locked,” Cheslea Cunningham, a former Wright Dentures and Implants patient, recalled.
Dozens of Brian Jenkins’ former patients experienced the same thing when his dental practice suddenly closed. Many patients had already paid thousands of dollars and were left with unfinished dental work.
The Missouri Dental Board revoked Brian Jenkins’ dental license last November.
“So I tried to find another dentist, and of course, after already giving them thousands and thousands of dollars, I couldn’t just fork out money for another dentist, and so I’ve just been kind of living with it, not by choice,” Cunningham explained.
She visited a different dentist to determine what needed to be done to correct the work she had done at Wright Dentures and Implants.
“My tops are so loose now that the other dentist said that I literally have the bone density of an 80-year-old woman. So they have to take out every single implant that was put in, do a whole reconstructive procedure like bone grafting, and everything before they can even move forward. They said it would cost like 30 grand to fix,” Cunningham said.
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After the closure, many former patients filed suit against Jenkins.
“We had something like 20 people that we were representing with very similar fact patterns, people that trusted a professional who was licensed to provide dental services and really fell short of his responsibility to each and every one of them,” personal injury Lawyer Paemon Aramjoo said.
“We’re still waiting on how and whether we’re going to be able to collect what portions of these judgments that we have for them. But I have immense pride that we have people who trust us to represent them on these cases.”
Last month, a Jackson County judge ruled in favor of Jenkins’ former patients and awarded a total of almost $9.5 million in judgments.