Medical negligence is the legal cause of action that underpins most medical malpractice claims in Ontario. To establish liability in medical negligence, a plaintiff must prove three elements: that the defendant owed a duty of care to the patient, that the defendant’s conduct fell below the standard of care a reasonable practitioner in the same circumstances would have met, and that the breach caused or materially contributed to the plaintiff’s injury. The framework is the same general negligence framework applied to other tort cases, but its application in the medical context is shaped by the requirement of expert evidence at every step.
Medical negligence is distinct from related but separate theories of liability that can arise on the same facts: battery, where a procedure is performed without any consent at all; failure of informed consent in negligence, where consent was given but the disclosure was inadequate; vicarious liability, where one party is responsible for the conduct of another; and direct institutional liability, where the hospital itself is sued for its systems and processes.
Posts tagged Medical Negligence analyze Ontario decisions on the core negligence framework: duty, breach, and causation, in cases against physicians, nurses, hospitals, and other regulated health professionals.
Medical malpractice as an intervening act in MVA cases. A Baines v Abounaja analysis from Paul’s 2025 LSO Motor Vehicle Litigation Summit presentation.
A settlement on behalf of a patient diagnosed with terminal metastatic cancer based on imaging alone, who lived for an extended period under a wrong diagnosis.
A settlement on behalf of a patient discharged from hospital despite signs of acute psychiatric illness, who suffered catastrophic injury within 24 hours.
How plaintiff-side PI practice works as a business: case screening, partnerships, and resourcing. From a 2024 Legal Innovation Forum panel.
A settlement on behalf of a 40-year-old woman whose hysterectomy was described as uncomplicated but resulted in injuries to both ureters and chronic disability.
A settlement on behalf of a woman in her 60s whose family physician dismissed three years of GI symptoms despite a known family history of colon cancer.
How to cross-examine the defence expert and advance your case theory. From the 2024 OBA Anatomy of a Trial continuing professional development program.
Composite card pairing the Medico-Legal Society of Toronto crest with the title Causation in Systemic Medical Negligence, on Paul Cahill’s navy brand panel.
Paul Cahill’s Winter 2023/2024 Litigator article on finding the right expert, navigating Westerhof and the Mohan/White Burgess framework, and surviving defence challenges to expert evidence at trial.
When can a defendant compel genetic testing in a medical malpractice claim? An analysis of Klinck v Dorsay and Preece v Nicholson from a 2023 OTLA paper.
A settlement on behalf of the family of a 39-year-old mother of two whose breast cancer was diagnosed too late after a missed opportunity to investigate.
The Court of Appeal upholds the use of epidemiological evidence to infer causation across a class of patients harmed by a physician’s IPAC failures.
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