This is one of those rare medical malpractice decisions where negligence is found against a doctor without the need for expert evidence. Expert evidence is almost always needed for the Plaintiff to prove negligence in a medical malpractice claim, however, there are those rare instances when it is not.
The trial judge considered all the evidence and determined that Dr. Lawson did not fall below the standard of care with respect to surgery. The trial accepted the physician’s evidence that she would have checked the ureters for injury during the procedure even though it was not documented in her operative report. Even if the ureters had not been inspected, the trial judge found that they would not have shown an injury at the time.
On February 2, 2023, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld a class action trial decision from an infectious disease outbreak at the Rothbart Centre for Pain Care Ltd. (“the Rothbart Centre”) in Toronto.
Ms. Fortune-Ozoike was eventually diagnosed with a left knee dislocation. By the following morning, the blood flow in her left leg was seriously compromised, and she was transferred on an urgent basis by air ambulance to St. Michael’s Hospital. There, she had vascular surgery in the early afternoon of December 27, 2013. Unfortunately, this was too late to save Ms. Fortune-Ozoike’s leg and, on January 4, 2014, she received an above-knee amputation.
The Plaintiffs in this medical malpractice case moved for production of the instructing letter, e-mails, and memos detailing conversations between the defence expert and lawyer for the Defendant doctor.