Category: Liability
-
Bailey v Young: Placental Abruption, Expectant Management, and a $4.6 Million Settlement — Court Approval of a Minor’s Settlement and Contingency Fees in Nova Scotia Birth Injury Litigation
On January 29, 2013, Jayden Bailey was born at the Izaak Walton Killam Health Centre in Halifax (Atlantic Canada's primary maternal and pediatric tertiary care hospital) at less than 31 weeks gestation. He was extremely premature. He suffered a brain injury at or around the time of his birth. That injury caused cerebral palsy, motor dysfunction, and intellectual disability. He was eight years old when this case came before Chief Justice Deborah K. Smith of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court for approval of a $4.6 million settlement.
Read more -
Suwary v Librach: Occult Cord Prolapse, Operative Vaginal Delivery, and Causation Where the Insult Preceded the Intervention
Robert Suwary was born on January 29, 1999, at Women's College Hospital in Toronto. He arrived in the world with no detectable heart rate. He began to breathe six minutes after delivery. His Apgar score was 0. The acute near total interruption in blood supply to his brain during the minutes of his birth left him with one of the most severe forms of cerebral palsy, affecting his entire body: cognitive and communication delays, learning disabilities, limited expressive speech, articulation difficulties, and feeding and swallowing challenges.
Read more -
Ter Neuzen v Korn: HIV, Artificial Insemination, and the Rule That Common Practice Is Not Always a Defence
Canadian medical malpractice law rests on a principle that protects physicians who act in accordance with the established practices of their profession. That principle is real, well-founded, and essential to the fair assessment of clinical conduct. But it has a limit. Ter Neuzen v Korn is the Supreme Court of Canada decision that defines that limit, establishing precisely when common professional practice is a complete answer to an allegation of negligence, and precisely when it is not.
Read more -
Wilson v Swanson: Error in Judgment vs. Negligence and the Surgeon’s Intraoperative Decision
Medicine is practised in real time, with imperfect information, under the pressure of consequences that cannot be delayed. A surgeon opening a patient's abdomen and looking at a lesion that may or may not be cancer cannot pause the moment, order further tests, and wait for a clearer picture. They must make a decision. They must make it now. And they must make it without any knowledge of whether, years later, a court will agree with them.
Read more -
Dudas v Munro: Fetal Distress, Timing, and the Boundary Between Misadventure and Negligence in Obstetric Practice
Catherine Dudas was born on December 4, 1984 at Grace Hospital in Vancouver. She was born pale, limp, and without a discernible heartbeat, requiring immediate and prolonged resuscitation. Analysis after birth revealed severe acidosis from oxygen deprivation and severe anemia from a massive fetal-maternal hemorrhage in which the fetus had lost two thirds of her blood into the maternal circulation. By the time of trial in 1997, when Catherine was twelve years old, she had moderate mental retardation, could not walk or stand without assistance, and had an almost complete absence of verbal language. She had complex cerebral palsy with spasticity in her lower limbs, severe limitation in motor skills, and palsy involving the muscles of speech and movement of her tongue.
Read more -
Jacobi v Griffiths: Where the Bazley Enterprise Risk Test Draws Its Line — and Why Three Supreme Court Justices Disagreed
When the Supreme Court of Canada handed down Bazley v Curry on June 17, 1999, it simultaneously released its decision in Jacobi v Griffiths, a companion case decided the same day, by the same court, under the same enterprise risk framework, and reaching the opposite result. Where Bazley found vicarious liability, Jacobi did not. The margin was four justices to three.
Read more -
Khan v Lee: Pleading a Medical Malpractice Claim — What You Must Say, and What You Cannot Yet Be Required to Prove
Rahim Khan was born on May 15, 1991, following an emergency Caesarean section. He suffered permanent brain damage resulting in serious mental and physical impairments. His parents believed that the obstetrician who oversaw Bibi Khan's pregnancy and Rahim's delivery, Dr. Joseph Lee, was responsible. In April 2011, almost twenty years after the birth, they issued a statement of claim.
Read more -
MacLean et al v MacDonald: Why a Fifteen-Year-Old Boy’s Estate Could Not Recover His Lost Lifetime Earnings — and What That Means for Every Nova Scotia Fatal Accident Claim
Paul Levy was fifteen years old when a car struck him as he crossed the street in January 1999. He died from his injuries. The driver of the car was Douglas MacDonald.
Read more -
Miller et al v Dow et al: Fetal Monitoring Standards, the Level-of-Hospital Question, and Causation in a Birth Injury Death Case
Jordan Miller was born on March 4, 1998 at the Carleton Memorial Hospital in Woodstock, New Brunswick. He was born not breathing. He required urgent resuscitation. He suffered oxygen deprivation that caused hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy and severe, permanent neurological damage. He had cerebral palsy. He could not walk, stand, sit up, hold his head up, roll over, see, speak, or communicate in any way. He was completely dependent on others for his entire life. He died on September 19, 2010. He was twelve years old.
Read more
