Plaintiff Win

Plaintiff Win

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.

Navy title card reading "Brown v Meaney: The limits of clinical judgment, affirmed on appeal" from paulcahill.ca, a Paul Cahill case comment.

Brown v Meaney: Clinical Judgment, Informed Consent, and Commonsense Causation on Appeal

The Court of Appeal dismisses the appeal in Brown v Meaney, upholding findings that two pediatric neurologists breached the standard of care and the duty to obtain informed consent when they abandoned a pyridoxine trial in an infant with a rare epilepsy. The decision affirms that a defensible first impression does not excuse the failure to revisit it, and that causation need not be proven with scientific precision.

June 19, 2026

Case comment on J.C. v Jugenburg, 2026 ONSC 3061, on clinic surveillance, intrusion upon seclusion, and aggregate privacy damages in a patient class action. By Paul Cahill, LSO Certified Specialist in Civil Litigation.

J.C. v Jugenburg: Undisclosed Patient Surveillance and the Tort of Intrusion upon Seclusion

A cosmetic surgery clinic recorded patients in consultation rooms and the operating room without telling them. In J.C. v Jugenburg, 2026 ONSC 3061, the court awarded $21.5 million in aggregate damages and $1 million in punitive damages, and clarified how intrusion upon seclusion applies inside the doctor-patient relationship.

June 5, 2026

Navy title card reading "Ewashko v Hugo, Case Comment" with the line "A delayed urgent C-section and a preventable birth injury," from paulcahill.ca

Ewashko v Hugo: A Delayed C-Section and a Preventable Birth Injury

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.

May 13, 2026

Ewashko v Hugo: A Delayed C-Section and a Preventable Birth Injury

Gumbley v Vasiliou: Severe Asthma, Delayed Intubation, and a Counterfactual That Worked

Shaw Estate v Handler: The Court of Appeal Upholds Liability for a Failure to Recall After Critical Imaging

Ibrahimova v Cavanagh: Missed pPROM, the Novel Presentation Referral Framework, and Catastrophic Outcomes

KB v Guhle: Missed Pediatric Sepsis, Diagnostic Anchoring, and Catastrophic Injury Damages

Bradley v Wang: SIRVA, Injection Landmarking, and the Resident Physician Standard of Care

Dallner v Gladwell: Brachial Plexus Injury and Inferring Negligence from a Rare Complication

Hasan v Trillium: When the Defendant’s Negligence Creates the Evidentiary Gap

Hemmings v Peng: When the Anaesthetic, Not AFE, Caused the Catastrophe

Denman v Radovanovic: Cumulative Risks and the Treatment Team’s Duty to Inform

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Plaintiff Win

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Concerned about medical negligence? Talk to Paul directly.

Concerned about medical negligence?
Talk to Paul directly.