Case comments analyze decisions of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, the Court of Appeal for Ontario, and other Canadian courts in medical malpractice litigation. Each post takes a single decision and works through what happened, how the court applied the standard of care, causation, and damages frameworks to the facts, what the expert evidence said, and what the practical implications are for similar future claims.
The archive covers Ontario civil decisions across the full range of medical malpractice practice: obstetric and birth injury cases, missed and delayed diagnoses, surgical and anaesthetic errors, hospital negligence, informed consent claims, and procedural matters such as limitation periods and expert evidence challenges. It also includes appellate decisions from outside Ontario where the reasoning is likely to be persuasive in Ontario courts, particularly from the Supreme Court of Canada and the appellate courts of British Columbia.
Case comments are written for two audiences. Practising lawyers, law students, and judicial researchers can use them as a working library of recent Ontario medical malpractice doctrine. Prospective clients and patients can use them to see how courts have approached fact patterns similar to their own. The substance is the same for both audiences; only the framing of the takeaway changes.
Posts in this category are organized by the tags applied to each comment, allowing readers to filter by clinical specialty, legal concept, court, or outcome.
New Brunswick court holds anesthesiologist negligent in death of 36-year-old patient with severe obesity and sepsis after spinal anesthesia choice and management.
Ontario court denies defendant doctors’ motion for in-home security camera recordings in catastrophic injury malpractice action. Privacy prevails over relevance.
Manitoba Court of Appeal affirms dismissal of delayed colon cancer diagnosis claim. The Benhaim framework on adverse inferences and statistical evidence in causation.
Ontario Superior Court dismisses fatal aortic dissection claim against internist and ED physician. The standards of care for mild aortic dilation and hypertensive chest pain.
Ontario Superior Court finds gynecologic surgeon liable for unrecognized intraoperative bowel injury. The duty to inspect framework in laparoscopic surgery.
Ontario Superior Court dismisses post-operative osteomyelitis claim. The hospitalist standard of care, patient-declined treatment, and the pre-existing infection defence.
Ontario Superior Court finds pediatric neurologists negligent for delayed pyridoxine treatment in PDE. The low-risk alternative framework and twin sister causation.
Alberta King’s Bench dismisses critical care malpractice claim. Standard of care breached on echocardiography timing, but causation defeated by temporal mismatch.
Justice Williams awards over $1M in costs against the unsuccessful plaintiff in the Lyme disease malpractice trial. The defendant-win costs framework in Ontario.
The BC Supreme Court dismisses a missed-appendicitis claim. Normal ultrasound, documented differential diagnosis, and the anchoring bias allegation rejected.
When a surgical complication is extreme and rare, the trier of fact can infer negligence from the outcome itself. Trial win on shoulder replacement nerve injury.
The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal affirms dismissal of a failure-to-refer claim. Breach of standard of care, but causation defeated by referral wait times.
Free, confidential consultations. Paul reviews every potential case personally and tells you honestly whether it merits investigation.