Posts tagged Trial Decision analyze reasons issued by Ontario trial judges (or, in the rarer case of a jury trial, the verdict and judge’s instructions) at the conclusion of a medical malpractice action. Trial decisions are the most detailed source of insight into how Ontario courts apply the standard of care, causation, and damages frameworks to specific clinical fact patterns. Unlike summary judgment decisions or appellate rulings, a trial decision reflects the court’s view after hearing all of the evidence, including the testimony of the parties, fact witnesses, and competing experts.
Medical malpractice trials are evidence-intensive and procedurally demanding. A typical trial may run two to six weeks and involve five or more expert witnesses on each side, addressing standard of care, causation, the mechanism of injury, prognosis, and quantum of damages. The trial judge’s reasons must address each element of the cause of action, resolve conflicting expert opinions, and explain the credibility findings underlying any disputed facts. These reasons can run to hundreds of paragraphs.
Posts under this tag identify the clinical context, the issues on which the case turned, the expert evidence, and the result. Each post indicates whether the decision is on appeal.
New Brunswick court holds anesthesiologist negligent in death of 36-year-old patient with severe obesity and sepsis after spinal anesthesia choice and management.
Ontario Superior Court finds gynecologic surgeon liable for unrecognized intraoperative bowel injury. The duty to inspect framework in laparoscopic surgery.
Ontario Superior Court dismisses post-operative osteomyelitis claim. The hospitalist standard of care, patient-declined treatment, and the pre-existing infection defence.
Ontario Superior Court finds pediatric neurologists negligent for delayed pyridoxine treatment in PDE. The low-risk alternative framework and twin sister causation.
Justice Williams awards over $1M in costs against the unsuccessful plaintiff in the Lyme disease malpractice trial. The defendant-win costs framework in Ontario.
The BC Supreme Court dismisses a missed-appendicitis claim. Normal ultrasound, documented differential diagnosis, and the anchoring bias allegation rejected.
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.
Paul Cahill won a trial verdict in Hacopian-Armen v Mahmoud where Justice Brown found a gynecologist negligently failed to biopsy and missed a curable cancer.
Paul Cahill won a trial verdict in O’Neill-Renouf v Ibrahim where Justice Baltman found a urologist negligently injured the obturator nerve during a TVT procedure.
Paul Cahill’s trial victory in Ayana v Skin Klinic, 2009, established the standard of care for laser hair removal performed in an Ontario dermatology clinic.
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