УГОВОР О ИЗРАДИ И УГРАЂИВАЊУ ЗУБНЕ ПРОТЕЗЕ
CONTRACT ON THE CONSTRUCTION AND INSTALLATION OF DENTAL PROSTHETIC APPLIANCES

Summary/Abstract: A contract on making and installing a dental prosthesis is a frequent practice in everyday life, but in the cases and the legal theory of some European countries are expressed very different views the as to its legal nature. Some consider it to be a mandate some consider it to be a mixed contract, and others believe it is a service contract, or contract for work. The paper gives a detailed account of these views. Apart from that, it discusses the content of contracts on the construction and delivery of dental prosthetic appliances, the definition and types of dental prosthetic appliances, and their therapeutical value. From the stanдрoint of Yugoslav law, there is no ambiguity in determining the legal nature of the relationship between the dentist and the patient because the Law on obligations prescribes that it should be subject to a contract for work. However, since providing prosthetic appliances to a patient consists of activities that combine skills of a technical nature, on the one hand, and of a medical nature, on the other, another legal problem arises. It is the question of whether identical rules of civil responsibility should be applied when professional mistakes are committed in the medical and technical activities. The author considers that the answer to this question should be negative. A prosthetic appliance, as a rule, is made by a dental technician, and that work falls within the domain of a craft. How the prosthetic appliance will be produced depends entirely on the skill of the dental technician. He is expected to produce a technically faultless and functional prosthesis. The dentist is obliged to guarantee and is liable for physical defects regardless of any fault. The provisions of the contract for work call for this. The activities of the dentist that are connected with the construction and delivery of dental prosthetic appliances are mainly of another nature and belong to the domain of medicine. Their success does not depend only on the dentist, but also on physiological and psychological factors pertaining to the patient. Given that these factors are unpredictable, the dentist is not able to guarantee the success of his medical activities. This gives rise to the need to legally assess the said activités in a different manner. Because of failing to fulfill or faultily performing the contracted obligations that belong in that category, the dentist should be held liable only if he did not abide by the standard rules of the profession, and on condition that this failure to abide by them can be ascribed to his responsibility.

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