LEWISTON — The lawyer for Dr. Jan Kippax, who’s been under a cloud since the Maine Board of Dental Practice briefly suspended his license last winter, said Thursday that regulators are “intolerably biased” against the longtime oral surgeon.

James Belleau, an Auburn attorney, called the board’s 30-day suspension of Kippax “an impulsive action” that “deprived Dr. Kippax of his due process rights, gave credence to unproven allegations, and irreparably harmed his career and reputation.”

That the board had no reason to suspend Kippax’s license in February is shown by its lack of any action since, the lawyer said in a prepared statement.

Belleau said that almost six months after the suspension, no hearing is yet scheduled about the charges levied against Kippax by the panel on Feb. 15.

When state dental regulators suspended his license, they alleged Kippax had shown a lack of skill, empathy, respect for his patients and failed in his “commitment to serving his community in a safe and caring way.”

The board warned that if he continued to practice “in his reckless and harmful way, innocent patients are destined to continue to suffer dire consequences.”

The panel vowed that before the 30-day suspension ended, Kippax would “have an opportunity to contest the board’s findings” at a public hearing to be held by March 17.

That date came and went without a hearing. And since March 17, Kippax’s license has been restored, allowing him to practice dentistry in Maine unhindered.

His office in Lewiston is open for business.

Belleau said that for 27 years, Kippax “has provided critical oral and maxillofacial care to thousands of patients in Maine.”

“Dr. Kippax has returned to practicing dentistry as he is fully permitted to do under his active license,” the attorney said.

“None of the allegations in the complaints pending for hearing in front of the board have been corroborated by expert testimony,” Belleau said.

“In fact, the state has yet to provide the opinion of any expert oral surgeon in this case,” he said. “The only expert who has offered opinions in this case has indicated that none of Dr. Kippax’s actions deviated from the standard of care.”

State regulators have said almost nothing about the status of the case they initiated against Kippax.

The board’s executive director, Penny Vaillancourt, said last month a hearing officer assigned to the case “will coordinate with board staff, licensee’s counsel and the Attorney General’s Office in establishing a hearing date.”

The Kippax case is by far the biggest and most complicated one that the dental panel has dealt with in public for years. It involves 18 patients and a large number of charges.

Officials have said it might take days to go through them all in a hearing, particularly given Belleau’s stated intention of contesting the case vigorously.

Paperwork filed with the board by Belleau in February indicated that Kippax planned to depose board members and members of the committee that investigated the complaints from patients, including Vaillancourt.

He also intended to ask for dismissal of the complaints on the grounds that the board is so biased against him that it cannot serve as an impartial tribunal to weigh the evidence fairly.

Belleau said then that he would seek separate hearings on each complaint rather than dealing with all 18 at once so that each could be considered on its merits “and not be tainted” by the volume of complaints.

The Sun Journal has filed a Freedom of Access Act request for any subsequent documents that might show what’s happening with the case but has not received any. The board has remained mum on the case.

scollins@sunjournal.com

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