I’ve learned that I have been included in this years Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory.
It’s an honour because unlike some directories you can’t nominate yourself or pay to be included. All the nominees are voted on by the lawyers own peers and colleagues.
So to all my colleagues…thanks!
I have discussed before the significant costs involved in pursuing medical malpractice claims in Nova Scotia. The complexity of medical malpractice claims means legal fees and expenses to hire medical experts can potentially bankrupt an unsuccessful plaintiff.
Case in point is a recent decision from Ontario Manary v. Halmo et al.
After a 19 day trial the defendant, Dr. Steven Halmo was found liable to the plaintiff and ordered to pay damages in the amount of $430,000.00.
Last night I was invited to be a guest speaker University of King’s College Media and the Law course.
As a personal injury lawyer in Halifax, my practice involves representing victims of childhood sexual abuse, medical malpractice claims and catastrophic injury claims, but I have also had the good fortune of assisting clients in some groundbreaking claims. There was a good discussion about why these types of claims are of interest to the public.
My presentation involved a review of the ethical rules that govern when lawyers can (or should) talk to the media, tips for budding journalists on how to develop better relationships with lawyers, and finally a review of some of the cases I have been involved in that have been in the news.
This month the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario released an interesting decision in a medical malpractice case Meuwissen v. Perkin. As a Nova Scotia medical malpractice lawyer, I found the case interesting because it deals with some unique issues of production that I have not run into in a medical malpractice claim in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick where I do most of my cases.
Implied Undertaking Rule
In Canada, we have what is known as the “implied undertaking rule”. What that means is there is an implied promise that information collected in the course of a lawsuit will not be disclosed to anyone who is not a party to the litigation.
Medical malpractice lawyers know most potential victims of medical malpractice never file a claim. Recently a report by ABC News has confirmed that in the United States more than 80% of hospital errors are not reported by hospital employees.
Hospitals Don’t Learn From Mistakes?
The report analyzed data from hospitalized Medicare patients. Investigators determined even when mistakes were reported hospitals rarely changed their policies or practices to prevent repeated errors. Hospitals usually claimed that errors were not due to “systemic quality problems”.
Use of Facebook in Litigation Increasing
I’ve posted before about how defence counsel in personal injury claims have routinely requesting disclosure of plaintiff’s Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and otheon linene social media platforms. See for example:
Court Orders Lawyer to Mislead Client to get Access to Facebook – Sparks v. Dubé
This week Sidney Crosby returned to the ice after a ten month hiatus while he underwent rehabilitation for a severe concussion.
Crosby’s performance suggests that the rest and rehabilitation has served him well. He appears to be back in top form, one of the best in the NHL.
Sidney’s Injury Was a Good Thing
In any medical malpractice case the plaintiff bears the burden of proving that the defendant caused the patient’s injury, disability or death.
In many cases the initial cause of the plaintiff’s injury was not brought about by the defendant doctor. Rather, the plaintiff presented with an illness or medical condition which is misdiagnosed and, as a result, the patient doesn’t get treatment that might have cured the illness or condition (or prevented further deterioration).
Loss of Chance
I read an interesting decision out of Alberta recently, Gilberds v. Sobey that deals with informed consent to medical treatment and whether statistical information should be given to patients to help them determine if they will undergo treatment.
The case is interesting (at least to those of us doing medical malpractice litigation) because it also touches on the issues of what medical malpractice claimants need to prove to win their claims and the standard of care in medical malpractice claims.
Justice Ross pointed out the importance of statistical evidence at paragraph 81 of her decision:
I agree with Ferrier J. that effective communication of treatment risks requires some information on the probability of a particular result: Matuzich v. Lieberman. The degree of probability of a risk is obviously relevant to reasonable patients considering whether they want to undergo treatment; indeed the degree of probability is one of the factors that qualifies a risk as material.
I go into more detail about the facts of the decision and it’s importance to medical malpractice claims on my Atlantic Canada Personal Injury Lawyer Blog.
