Category
All published articles in the medical liability cluster.
14 published articles
How professional liability moved from the protective attitude of the early Quebec cases toward the patient, why litigation grew and what it cost, the prevention mechanisms built into Quebec law, and the arguments for...
Why the Quebec physician owes an obligation of means rather than of result, how courts measure conduct against the reasonably prudent and competent physician placed in the same circumstances, and which concrete factors...
How the Professional Code, the Code of Ethics of Physicians, the Youth Protection Act, the Highway Safety Code, the health services legislation, and the Automobile Insurance Act shape a Quebec physician's civil...
Why a medical liability claim in Quebec almost always rises or falls on expert evidence: the burden and degree of proof, the mission the Code of Civil Procedure assigns to the expert, the three qualities of a valid...
How Quebec law tries to contain expert partisanship through joint and court-appointed experts, how courts treat experts paid only on success and treating physicians who testify for or against their patients, and why the...
What arts. 339 to 341 of the Code of Civil Procedure include in recoverable expert costs, why a provision for costs before trial is so hard to obtain after St-Arnaud c. C.L. and under art. 53 CCP, what third-party...
How Quebec courts treat the medical record as prima facie proof, what weight deontological codes and disciplinary decisions carry in a civil action, and how fault is established by direct evidence or by presumptions of...
How Quebec courts assess a physician's diagnosis as an obligation of means: the circumstances, the knowledge available at the time, the patient's cooperation, and the recurring faults of poor listening, ignored files,...
How Quebec civil law defines the physician's duty to inform: the standard for fault, the rational-subjectivity test for causation, the content and recipients of disclosure, the heightened duty for non-therapeutic care,...
What Quebec civil law requires of a physician once treatment begins: care that is conscientious, current, and within competence, a properly documented file, a sound prescription, and a follow-up that does not abandon...
How Quebec law protects the confidentiality of what a physician learns from a patient, when the secret may or must be lifted, what a breach costs, and how the patient may consult and correct the medical record.
Whether a Quebec patient stands in a contractual or extra-contractual relationship with the hospital decides whether the institution answers for a physician's fault. This note traces the debate from Lapointe to...
When a Quebec hospital answers for the fault of the people who work within its walls: physicians who are not its employees, nurses who usually are, and residents who occupy both roles at once.
Why the causal link is the hardest element to prove in Quebec medical liability, how the balance of probabilities and the presumptions of fact under art. 2849 CCQ operate, and where the Supreme Court of Canada has drawn...