Posts tagged Plaintiff Win analyze Ontario medical malpractice cases in which the trial judge or jury found in favour of the patient or their family. Plaintiff wins are the minority outcome in this area of practice. Medical malpractice trials are evidence-intensive, expert-driven, and procedurally demanding, and defendants benefit from the structural advantages of well-resourced insurers, sophisticated counsel, and a high evidentiary burden on the plaintiff to prove standard of care, causation, and damages.
When plaintiffs do succeed, the decisions are worth careful study. They reveal what kinds of expert evidence persuaded the court, how the standard of care was defined for a particular specialty in a particular fact pattern, how causation was bridged between the clinical breach and the injury, and how damages were quantified. Plaintiff wins also show how appellate courts have intervened or declined to intervene when defendants have appealed.
Posts under this tag include both first-instance findings of liability and appellate decisions affirming or overturning lower-court outcomes. Each post identifies the clinical context, the issue or issues on which the case turned, and the practical implications for similar future claims.
An Ontario internist found negligent for delayed intubation and failure to call an intensivist when a young mother’s severe asthma attack turned catastrophic.
The Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the trial verdict in Shaw Estate v Handler, affirming the standard of care to recall a patient after critical CT findings.
Ontario court finds emergency physician negligent for failing to refer 17-week pregnant patient with pPROM to obstetrician, leading to septic shock and amputations.
Alberta court awards over $16.5 million to child who suffered quadruple amputation after delayed recognition of bacterial superinfection in pediatric RSV.
Ontario court awards over $1 million to nurse with chronic shoulder injury from improper tetanus injection by family medicine resident at SOC trial.
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 Court of Appeal affirmed plaintiff causation in a stroke malpractice case, holding that defendants cannot rely on evidentiary gaps their own negligence created.
The Court of Appeal affirmed a $12 million plaintiff verdict for catastrophic maternal brain injury, rejecting the defence theory of amniotic fluid embolism.
The Ontario Court of Appeal affirmed liability against three physicians for failure to disclose the cumulative risks of a multi-step brain AVM treatment plan.
A young man developed paraplegia from an undiagnosed spinal dural fistula his neurologist failed to investigate. A jury awarded $1.5M; the Court of Appeal affirmed.
An Ontario orthopaedic surgeon was found liable after removing clavicle hardware six weeks early without revisiting his own documented treatment plan.
The Ontario Court of Appeal upheld Paul Cahill’s trial verdict in Hacopian-Armen Estate v Mahmoud, clarifying the foreseeability test in delayed cancer cases.
Free, confidential consultations. Paul reviews every potential case personally and tells you honestly whether it merits investigation.