The Court of King’s Bench of Alberta is that province’s superior trial court, and its medical malpractice decisions are of interest to Ontario practitioners as persuasive authority on standard of care, causation, and the conduct of medical negligence trials.
For Ontario purposes the binding-versus-persuasive distinction matters. As a trial-level court of another province, the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta does not bind Ontario courts, and its decisions are persuasive only. Ontario judges may nonetheless consider its reasoning, particularly on a shared question of negligence principle or where its factual analysis of a clinical issue is instructive, because the common law of negligence is broadly consistent across the common law provinces.
Posts tagged Court of King’s Bench of Alberta 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.
An Alberta court found that an urgent C-section taking 101 minutes fell below the standard of care, that two physicians’ combined 50 minutes of unnecessary delay was not a defensible judgment call, and that the delay caused a child’s cerebral palsy. A look at the timeliness standard, the causation reasoning, and why this Alberta decision is persuasive, not binding, in Ontario.
Dr. Bailey admitted that her management of labour was negligent and that it caused a hypoxic brain injury at birth. The plaintiffs still lost, because they could not prove that the brain injury caused the child’s lasting impairments. JB v Bailey is an Alberta decision, persuasive only in Ontario, but it is a clear reminder that admitted negligence and admitted injury are not the same as proven causation.
Alberta court awards over $16.5 million to child who suffered quadruple amputation after delayed recognition of bacterial superinfection in pediatric RSV.
Alberta King’s Bench dismisses critical care malpractice claim. Standard of care breached on echocardiography timing, but causation defeated by temporal mismatch.
A surgeon was found liable for failing to disclose laparoscopic hernia repair as an alternative, even though the open repair he performed met the standard of care.
Free, confidential consultations. Paul reviews every potential case personally and tells you honestly whether it merits investigation.