SmileDirectClub scored a legal victory in New Jersey with the state’s Superior Court ruling that a 2019 complaint filed by the New Jersey Dental Association, alleging that the company “engaged in the unlawful practice of dentistry” in the state, is without merit. 

The complaint, filed in January 2019, maintained that SmileDirectClub-affiliated dentists reviewed 3D scans and digital photographs and/or impressions for the company without clinical examinations or a radiograph review. According to ADA News at the time of the filing of the complaint, the New Jersey Dental Association alleged that the company’s dentists never developed the “appropriate dentist-patient relationship,” and did not have the direct personal contact necessary to discuss treatment alternatives or risks with patients whose scans they were reviewing for SmileDirectClub. 

In a statement following the New Jersey Superior Court ruling, Susan Greenspon Rammelt, SmileDirectClub’s chief legal officer and executive vice president of business affairs and corporate secretary, said, “We are pleased that the Superior Court of New Jersey granted our motion for summary judgment against the New Jersey Dental Association’s sham complaint against SmileDirectClub and concluded that its allegations about our business and the independence of the doctors who use our network are false. This court decision verifies that SmileDirectClub’s model is in full compliance with the law, and that SmileDirectClub is not engaged in the corporate practice of dentistry.”