The Court of Appeal for British Columbia is that province’s highest court, and its medical malpractice decisions are of interest to Ontario practitioners as persuasive authority. British Columbia has an active medical malpractice docket, and its appellate court regularly addresses standard of care, causation, and the admissibility and weight of expert evidence.
For Ontario purposes the binding-versus-persuasive distinction is essential. Decisions of the Court of Appeal for British Columbia are not binding on Ontario courts. They are persuasive only, and Ontario judges may look to them, particularly where no Ontario authority is on point or where the British Columbia court has analyzed a shared question of principle more fully. The underlying common law of negligence is largely consistent across the common law provinces, which is why cross-province appellate reasoning carries weight even though it does not bind.
Posts tagged BC Court of Appeal analyze decisions of that court for what they signal about how Ontario courts may approach the same issue, noting their persuasive rather than binding status.
A widow’s appeal in a death after delayed embolization for a lingual artery pseudoaneurysm. The BC Court of Appeal affirmed dismissal on the standard of care.
A claim alleging that psychiatrists failed to disclose dose increases during a course of ECT was dismissed mid-trial for absence of expert evidence. The BC Court of Appeal affirmed.
A pre-term newborn with kernicterus lost her causation case despite a finding that her family physicians had breached the standard of care. The Snell adverse inference did not save the claim.
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