Robust and Pragmatic

Robust and pragmatic describes the approach Canadian courts take to proving causation in negligence where scientific certainty is unattainable. The phrase comes from the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Snell v Farrell, [1990] 2 SCR 311, in which the Court held that a trier of fact may infer causation from the evidence as a whole using ordinary common sense, and need not have positive scientific proof from an expert that the negligence caused the injury.

The principle matters in medical cases because the biological mechanism connecting a breach to an outcome is often uncertain, and the defendant is frequently the party with the better access to the relevant information. A robust and pragmatic inference allows a plaintiff to succeed despite genuine scientific uncertainty, provided the evidence as a whole supports the inference on a balance of probabilities. It does not reverse the burden of proof, and it does not relieve the plaintiff of the need to lead a sufficient evidentiary foundation.

Posts tagged Robust and Pragmatic analyze Ontario decisions applying the Snell approach to causation in medical negligence claims.