Plain-language insight on medical malpractice law in Ontario. Practical guidance, case analysis, and updates from a trial-focused practice. No legal jargon. No marketing fluff. Just what you need to know.
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In the certified Moncton oxytocin class action, a New Brunswick court has ordered the defendant nurse’s personnel file produced, rejected most of the hospital’s quality-improvement privilege claims, and refused to disclose the private health records of other patients. The disclosure reasoning is persuasive only in Ontario, but it tracks the Ontario approach closely.
Some of the most common beliefs about medical malpractice in Ontario are simply wrong, and they cut both ways: pushing some people toward hopeless claims and others away from good ones. Here are the misunderstandings I see most often, set against how the law actually works, from what counts as negligence to limitation periods, College complaints, causation, and the cap on damages.
Norman Clarey nearly died after a bowel resection led to a failed anastomosis and a permanent stoma. A Prince Edward Island court nonetheless dismissed his negligence, breach of contract, and informed consent claims, finding Dr. Gillis met the standard of care throughout and that causation was not proven. As an out-of-province decision it is persuasive but not binding in Ontario, though it applies largely Ontario and Supreme Court of Canada authority.
A new report finds one in 10 admitted patients now spend more than 48 hours waiting in the emergency department, and roughly 16,000 died while waiting for care last year. But a broken system is not the same as a winnable malpractice claim. Here is where an ER delay can cross into negligence in Ontario, and where it cannot.
The Court of Appeal dismisses the appeal in Brown v Meaney, upholding findings that two pediatric neurologists breached the standard of care and the duty to obtain informed consent when they abandoned a pyridoxine trial in an infant with a rare epilepsy. The decision affirms that a defensible first impression does not excuse the failure to revisit it, and that causation need not be proven with scientific precision.
Hamilton Spectator coverage of Dr. Stefan Konasiewicz, whose six-month suspension could end in August. Paul Cahill comments on why a patient death led the discipline tribunal to remediation rather than revocation, and where a College proceeding ends and a civil claim begins.
A cosmetic surgery clinic recorded patients in consultation rooms and the operating room without telling them. In J.C. v Jugenburg, 2026 ONSC 3061, the court awarded $21.5 million in aggregate damages and $1 million in punitive damages, and clarified how intrusion upon seclusion applies inside the doctor-patient relationship.
Paul Cahill on the Financial Foundations panel at the Legal Innovation Forum’s Business of Personal Injury Symposium, Toronto, May 27, 2026.
Doctors warn against an overwhelming surge of online menopause misinformation. The legal framework where patient harm crosses into medical malpractice in Ontario.