Medical Records, Deontology, and Proving Medical Fault

Overview

A medical liability action in Quebec is won or lost on proof. The patient must establish fault (faute), injury (préjudice), and causation (lien de causalité), yet the facts that matter usually took place in an operating room or on a ward where the only witnesses were the defendants and their staff. Quebec courts have responded by giving the a privileged evidentiary status, by drawing on professional norms and deontological codes to define the conduct expected of a reasonable physician, and by allowing fault to be established indirectly through presumptions of fact under art. 2849 CCQ. This sixth note in the Medical Liability series examines each of those tools, the weight of a prior disciplinary decision in a civil trial, and the way courts dispose of cases where the profession itself is divided over the correct practice.

Learning Objectives

Explain why entries in the medical record are received as of their contents, and what follows from a missing, illegible, late, or altered note.
Assess the weight of a disciplinary conviction or acquittal in a subsequent civil action, and distinguish a judgment from a complaint or a .
State the conditions under which a may be drawn under art. 2849 CCQ, and distinguish that indirect proof from .

Usages, Customs, and the Rules of the Art

The physician is bound by an obligation of means, and the court asks whether the defendant acted as a reasonably prudent and competent physician would have acted in the same circumstances. The content of that standard is rarely found in a statute. It is drawn from the usages and customs of the profession, from clinical guidelines issued by specialist bodies, from hospital regulations, and from experts who describe what competent practitioners actually do.

In Véronneau c. Girouard, 2021 QCCS 1704 (under appeal), the court accepted that the in obstetrics were those set out in the clinical directive of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, which prescribed a sequence of steps when a fetal tracing showed minimal variability: verify after 40 minutes whether variability had returned, attempt stimulation if not, and prepare for immediate delivery if the tracing remained abnormal. The court also used the Society's 2014 criteria to assess the probability that an intrapartum hypoxic-ischemic event had caused the child's injury, noting that the criteria serve as a guide and need not all be satisfied.

Institutional rules play the same role. In Hôpital de Chicoutimi c. Battikha, 1997 CanLII 9987 (QC CA), the trial judge relied on article 6.9 of an operating-block regulation adopted by the council of physicians and dentists and the hospital board, which required three counts of sponges and instruments and a radiograph whenever the counts did not reconcile. In Lalonde c. Tessier, 2011 QCCS 3935, a physician who continued telephone follow-up after a patient had lost amniotic fluid should have come to examine her or at least requested a consultation with the gynaecologist on call, because the hospital's regulation required it.

Professional guidance also governs the experts themselves. In M.J.R. c. Girard, 2019 QCCS 1937, affirmed 2021 QCCA 826, the court faulted the plaintiffs' experts for omitting the list of documents reviewed, contrary to the practice guide on expert medicine of the Collège des médecins du Québec, and found their reports methodologically deficient. Guidelines, protocols, and internal regulations must therefore be identified early, since they frame the questions put to every expert.

The Evidentiary Weight of the Medical Record

Prima Facie Proof of Its Contents

The governing principle comes from Ares v. Venner, [1970] SCR 608. Hospital records, including nurses' notes, made contemporaneously by someone with personal knowledge of the facts whose duty it is to make the entries, are received as prima facie proof of the facts they relate. The record is not conclusive: any party may challenge the accuracy of the entries, and in Ares the nurses were present in court and available to testify had the respondent wished to contest their notes.

Philips-Nootens and Kouri describe the record as a determinative element of proof in any lawsuit, which is why particular care must be taken in drafting and preserving it. The file must contain the elements needed to show compliance with the standards of good practice and with legal requirements. Because it proves its own contents prima facie, the omission of elements that ought to have been included raises the presumption that they did not occur. The same reasoning applies to a physician's private file, to medical notes in a hospital chart, and to a record that is illegible.

The rationale is reliability. In M.J.R. c. Girard, the Superior Court endorsed the observation that courts have repeatedly recognized a presumption that notes entered by a health professional are truthful, since at the moment of writing the professional has no interest in recording anything other than what actually happened. The physician's testimony about a consultation corresponded closely to the notes she had written after the parents left, and those notes were held reliable.

Two consequences follow. A plaintiff who faces a complete, contemporaneous chart describing appropriate care bears the burden of displacing it. A defendant who cannot point to an entry documenting an examination or decision must offer a plausible and clear explanation for its absence, failing which the court will treat the act as not having been performed.

Missing, Late, or Altered Notes

The rule that what is not written was not done is applied with rigour. The authors cite a case in which nurses claimed that a patient's blood pressure had not been noted because it was normal; the judge concluded instead that it had simply not been taken, holding that one must first rely on the record and, absent plausible and clear explanations, treat what was not noted as not done.

Moreau c. Fugère, 2002 CanLII 143 (QC CS), applies the principle against a surgeon. The patient was injured by an incision during surgery on 12 January, an injury the surgeon said he never noticed. On 13 January he recorded that she remained bloated and delayed her discharge. On 14 January he wrote nothing, and she went home. She returned to the emergency department and died from the consequences of the undetected injury. The plaintiffs accepted that the obligation was one of means and alleged no fault during the operation; their complaint concerned the post-operative follow-up. The surgeon testified that he never records his presence in a patient's room, although he worked in a university hospital and taught his students to note everything. The court found his explanations vague and not credible. Having written on 13 January precisely because he had noticed that his patient was unwell, he should have redoubled his vigilance on 14 January, examined her, and ordered the necessary tests. The court concluded that he had relied on the notes of nurses, residents, and externs and had not examined her at all on the day of discharge; had he done so, she would not have left the hospital.

Timing affects weight as much as presence. In Laurendeau c. Centre hospitalier de LaSalle, 2015 QCCS 1923, both the physician and the nurse had entered notes, but the court preferred the nurse's version because her notes were contemporaneous, whereas the physician had written hers some two hours after the delivery, after other events that could have altered her recollection. Contemporaneous notes carry greater probative force; notes added afterwards are viewed with less credibility. Both the physician and the nurse were held liable.

Philips-Nootens and Kouri add a caution about modifications. Memory fades while writings endure, and a practitioner must be particularly careful when making any modification to a record.

Worked example: the unlogged check

A patient is admitted overnight after abdominal surgery. The nursing notes record vital signs every two hours until 4 a.m., then nothing until 8 a.m., when the patient is found in distress. The nurse testifies that she checked the patient at 6 a.m. and found nothing abnormal, but did not chart the check because everything was fine. Under Ares v. Venner and the reasoning of Philips-Nootens and Kouri, the record is prima facie proof of what was done, and the absence of a 6 a.m. entry raises the presumption that no check took place. The explanation that normal findings need not be charted is the very explanation rejected in the blood-pressure case. Unless the hospital offers a clear and plausible reason for the gap, the court will proceed on the basis that the patient went unobserved for four hours, and the questions become whether that gap fell below the standard of nursing care and whether it caused the injury.

The Impact of Deontology

Deontological Codes as Norms of Conduct

Every professional in Quebec is subject to a code of and bound to follow it. Several provisions of the Code de déontologie des médecins map directly onto the physician's civil obligations. Article 29 requires the physician to ensure that the patient or legal representative has received the explanations needed to understand the nature, purpose, and possible consequences of the proposed examination, investigation, treatment, or research, and to facilitate and respect the patient's decision. Article 54 prohibits the physician from remaining alone with a patient when using a method of examination or treatment that significantly alters consciousness. Article 20 requires the physician to keep confidential everything learned in practice and to refrain from indiscreet conversations about a patient, including on social networks. Article 33 provides that a physician who refers a patient to another physician remains responsible for that patient until the other physician has taken charge.

The civil court cannot ignore these provisions. How much weight they carry depends on whether a disciplinary body has already ruled on the physician's conduct.

Where a Disciplinary Council Has Ruled

Conviction. In the 1990s a wall separated the disciplinary and civil processes. Many decisions refused to admit evidence of a disciplinary conviction and struck allegations referring to a disciplinary verdict or plea; others admitted it as relevant and left its assessment to the trial judge. The Quebec Court of Appeal settled the question in Hamel c. J.C., J.E. 2008-1999 (C.A.), where a physician found guilty by the disciplinary committee of having had sexual relations with his patient was later sued by her. The court held at paragraph 56 that a guilty verdict rendered by a disciplinary committee is admissible. Since the in disciplinary matters is nearly identical to the civil burden, the conviction can be received as evidence and carries an . See also Audet c. Transamerica Life Canada, 2012 QCCA 1746.

Authority of fact is not res judicata. The plaintiff must still prove the facts alleged on a balance of probabilities; the disciplinary decision is one piece of evidence whose probative force the judge weighs. That force is lower than that of a criminal conviction, which is rendered beyond a reasonable doubt, whereas a disciplinary committee composed of a lawyer and two members of the profession decides on a balance of probabilities. A criminal conviction for the same facts likewise does not automatically produce civil liability; the fact must be put in evidence and assessed.

Acquittal. Baudouin observed that in exceptional circumstances a disciplinary acquittal could be a relevant element of proof, and the logic is the same. In Leclerc c. Commission municipale du Québec, 2019 QCCS 2373, the Superior Court stated at paragraph 19 that there is no different burden of proof in disciplinary matters; the balance of probabilities requires clear and convincing proof. See also Landry c. Guimont, 2013 QCCS 2004. Baudouin concludes that because the burden in the two proceedings is similar, a disciplinary judgment possesses an undeniable authority of fact, and the same should hold for an acquittal. The older decisions excluding disciplinary evidence rested on a Court of Appeal ruling about a coroner's report, which limited their scope.

A judgment is required. Only a decision convicting or acquitting the professional qualifies. In G.C. c. Brahm, 2020 QCCS 1844, affirmed 2021 QCCA 303, the court held at paragraph 40 that the syndic's inquiry, unlike a disciplinary judgment, does not constitute relevant evidence. In M.S. c. Lalla, 2010 QCCS 2549, at paragraph 193, the existence of a disciplinary inquiry or the filing of a complaint was held irrelevant to the physician's civil liability for the same facts.

Where No Disciplinary Decision Exists

Absent a disciplinary ruling, the civil court turns to the general law and the rule in Morin c. Blais, [1977] 1 SCR 570. A simple contravention of a regulatory provision does not engage civil liability if it causes no injury. Many regulatory provisions, however, express elementary norms of prudence while regulating the activity in question, and contravening such a norm is a civil fault. When that fault is immediately followed by a harmful accident of the very kind the norm was designed to prevent, it is reasonable to presume a causal relationship, subject to proof or a strong indication to the contrary.

Applied to deontology, the rule yields a two-step test:

Does the provision invoked express an , or does it merely regulate the internal affairs of the profession?
If it does, was the injury of the kind the norm was meant to prevent, so that the breach supports an inference of fault and of causation?

The Court of Appeal applied this approach to accountants in Caisse populaire de Charlesbourg c. Michaud, 1990 CanLII 3612 (QC CA), holding that recognized accounting practices and the , while not binding on the court, are of undeniable usefulness in determining fault. In Labrie c. Tremblay, 1999 CanLII 13502 (QC CA), the court cited Baudouin's observation that many duties in the lawyers' code are also civil obligations toward the client and used the code to define the duty to advise. The Supreme Court reasoned the same way for police officers in Kosoian c. Société de transport de Montréal, 2019 SCC 59, where the reasonable person became the reasonable police officer and the code of deontology informed the norm of conduct. In SNC-Lavalin inc. c. Deguise, 2020 QCCA 495, the trial judge could refer to the geologists' code of ethics, all the more so because articles 3.1.3 and 3.3.2 of that code set out elementary rules of prudence.

The limit appears in Therrien c. Launay, J.E. 2005-664 (C.S.), affirmed 2005 QCCA 665, leave to appeal refused. The plaintiff sued the physicians he had consulted in the years before his diagnosis, arguing that an earlier diagnosis would have allowed him to continue his studies, and invoked articles 2.03.02 and 2.03.31 of the code then in force. The court found that those provisions concerned courtesy between colleagues, good relations between professionals, and sound management of practice, not an elementary norm of prudence. The premise of Morin c. Blais was missing, no negative inference could be drawn, and the action was dismissed.

Ménard adds a point about expert evidence. Where the breach is of a legal rule rather than of a rule of the art, proof of the facts suffices without expert testimony. Breach of professional secrecy, failure to report a maltreated child to the Director of Youth Protection, and sexual abuse in therapy are contraventions of legal rules; no expert is needed to establish that such conduct is faulty.

Soft Law and Institutional Rules

Beyond the code lies a body of , which Maurin describes as a receptive category between non-law and hard law: declarations, recommendations, directives, opinions, charters, and codes of conduct that produce legal effects without being binding. Quebec courts treat such instruments as they treat deontological provisions: they are relevant where they express an elementary norm of prudence.

Zaccardo c. Chartis Insurance Company of Canada, 2016 QCCS 398, affirmed 2016 QCCA 787, is the clearest statement. A hockey rink is not a law-free zone, and the general rules of civil liability govern what happens there. Certain regulations express an elementary rule of prudence; the court must consider them in assessing fault, their transgression can objectify the fault, and it may even constitute a fault in itself. The clear rules of Hockey Canada and Hockey Québec against checking from behind expressed such a rule and, although not a norm set by the legislature, were a circumstance the court had to weigh. The court cited Morin c. Blais in support.

The same logic extends to professional guidance outside the formal regulatory framework. In Doré c. Barreau du Québec, 2012 SCC 12, the Supreme Court noted that provisions analogous to the Quebec civility rule appear in every code governing the legal profession in Canada, including the Canadian Bar Association's code. In Deshaies et Raymond inc. c. Kimwood Victoriaville, u.l.c., 2016 QCCQ 13468, the Court of Quebec held that the Association's code, although the Association is not a professional order in Quebec, expresses norms the public and the courts may expect of any Canadian lawyer, while the Barreau de Montréal's courtesy guide, lacking the force of law, serves a pedagogical purpose. For physicians, the Canadian Medical Protective Association's practical considerations on informed consent (2006, revised 2021) belong to the same category and could be pleaded, although the course material records no decision that has yet relied on them.

Direct Proof of Fault

Where the evidence of fault is overwhelming, the dispute rarely requires inference. Covet c. Jewish General Hospital, [1976] C.S. 1390, is the standard illustration: the anaesthetist failed to notice that the flexible hose connecting the anaesthesia machine to the hospital's central oxygen supply had become disconnected from the valve near the ceiling and was lying on the floor close to him. Fault of that kind is established by proving the fact itself.

Direct proof remains the exception. The plaintiff depends on the defendants and their staff to establish what happened, and the medical record is the principal means of doing so. Where the record is silent and the witnesses are the defendants, the plaintiff must turn to indirect proof.

Proof by Presumption

The Court of Appeal explained the rationale in Hôpital général de la région de l'Amiante Inc. c. Perron, EYB 1979-135933 (C.A.). The plaintiff was entirely dependent on the testimony of the anaesthetists and nursing staff. In many cases, requiring rigorous proof of a hospital or medical fault would deprive the victim of any recourse and amount to a denial of justice. To reduce that obstacle, the courts have, in the absence of direct proof of a characterized fault, lightened the victim's burden by permitting proof by presumptions of fact.

The Supreme Court had already stated the principle in Parent c. Lapointe, 1952 CanLII 1 (SCC): when, in the normal course of things, an event should not occur but does occur and causes damage, and when it is evident that it would not have occurred absent negligence, it falls to the author of the act to demonstrate a foreign cause for which he cannot be held responsible.

The statutory basis is art. 2849 CCQ:

Presumptions which are not established by law are left to the discretion of the court which shall take only serious, precise and concordant presumptions into consideration.

Philips-Nootens and Kouri insist that presumptions of fact differ from legal presumptions. They dispense the plaintiff from no step in the proof; they offer a means of establishing indirectly what the plaintiff cannot, by force of circumstances, establish directly. The object is to lead the court to conclude that, in all probability, what occurred would not have occurred absent fault. Three conditions must be met:

An event occurred that, in the normal course of things, should not have occurred.
The true origin of the damage remains unexplained by the usual means.
The most probable cause is a fault of the defendant.

The authors give the example of an operation for a herniated disc during which the dura mater was perforated and a small nerve root severed, leaving the patient with marked urinary disorders characteristic of a permanently neurogenic bladder. The event was abnormal, the patient had no urinary problem before surgery, and presumptions of fact led the judge to find the surgeon at fault.

Beauchesne c. Ladouceur, [2005] R.R.A. 1245 (C.S.), follows the same pattern. During a discectomy at L4-L5, the anaesthetist noted a drop in blood pressure to 80/45; the surgeon paused, then resumed, and the pressure stayed at 80/45 until the end. An ultrasound later revealed a retroperitoneal hematoma, and emergency vascular surgery disclosed that the right common iliac artery was almost 70 percent transected and the left common iliac vein lacerated beyond repair. Following Mainville c. Cité de la Santé de Laval, the court held that such an injury should not normally result from a properly performed discectomy, that the facts formed a set of serious, precise, and concordant presumptions tipping the balance toward the plaintiff, and that without the surgeon's faulty act the damage would not have occurred as it did. The defence had not discharged its burden of proving compliance with the rules of the art or extrinsic factors explaining the injury.

Once the presumption is engaged, the practical burden shifts. In the words of Parent c. Lapointe and Beauchesne c. Ladouceur, the defendant must prove compliance with the rules of the art or demonstrate a foreign cause or extrinsic factors for which no liability attaches. Presumptions must also be handled with care in the medical setting, since the first condition, an event that should not occur in the normal course of things, is not met where the outcome is a recognized inherent risk of the procedure.

Judicial Reactions to Controversy Within the Profession

The Solutions Generally Adopted

Where different schools of thought take opposing positions in a lawsuit, the court does not choose between them. Its role is to determine whether the defendant acted as a reasonably prudent physician, not to arbitrate scientific disputes within the profession.

Cloutier c. C.H.U.L., 1990 R.J.Q. 717 (C.A.), arose from the suicide of a psychiatric patient whose family sued the hospital and the physicians. Psychiatric opinion at the time was divided on the methods to adopt, and the family could not prove fault because of that controversy. Where both approaches are reasonable, it is not for the court to choose between them, and the claim must be dismissed.

Lacroix c. Léonard, [1992] R.R.A. 799 (C.S.), states the principle generally. The court must assess the evidence on its merits, but it does not fall to the court to resolve scientific disagreements; controversial questions, once supported by credible experts, fall outside the judge's competence. A physician who follows one of several practices endorsed by credible experts has acted as a reasonable practitioner might have acted.

Consequences for the Outcome of Trials

The refusal to arbitrate connects directly to the burden of proof. Under art. 2803 CCQ, the party who wishes to assert a right must prove the facts on which the claim is based. The plaintiff must prove that the defendant acted unreasonably. If the judge declines to choose between two reasonable schools, the plaintiff has not proved fault, and the defendant wins.

S.T. c. Dubois, 2008 QCCS 1431, shows the mechanism at paragraph 162. The experts disagreed both on the method for performing a second-trimester ultrasound and on the scientific weight of competing theories about the relationship between the nuchal fold and trisomy 21. Given those divergences, the court held that the plaintiff had not demonstrated on a balance of probabilities that the standards of good practice prevailing in Quebec in 1999 had been breached in the measurement of the nuchal fold, and the action was dismissed.

The divergence may concern the methods to adopt or the scientific scope of competing theories; the consequence is the same. A plaintiff facing a genuine and credible controversy over the standard must find fault elsewhere: in a breach of an elementary norm of prudence, in a gap in the record, or in an abnormal event that supports a presumption of fact.

Practice Checklist

Medical record

Obtain the complete file, including nursing notes, orders, and consultation records, and verify legibility.
Identify every examination, decision, or intervention the defendant claims to have performed that is not documented.
Compare the timing of each entry with the events it describes; flag notes written hours later or after an adverse outcome.
Look for alterations, additions, and corrections, and determine whether they are dated, signed, and distinguishable from the original.

Standard of care

Identify the clinical guidelines, protocols, and hospital regulations applicable at the time of the events.
Confirm that expert reports list the documents reviewed and follow the practice guide of the Collège des médecins du Québec.
Determine whether the alleged breach is of a rule of the art (expert evidence required) or of a legal rule (proof of the facts may suffice).

Deontology and disciplinary history

Verify whether a has convicted or acquitted the professional on the same facts; only a judgment is admissible, not a complaint or a syndic's inquiry.
For each deontological provision invoked, ask whether it expresses an elementary norm of prudence or merely regulates courtesy or practice management.
Where it does, assess whether the injury is of the kind the norm was meant to prevent.

Method of proof

Assess whether direct proof of fault is available from the record or from witnesses.
If not, evaluate the three conditions for a presumption of fact: an event that should not normally occur, an unexplained origin, and fault as the most probable cause.
Anticipate the defence's rebuttal: proof of compliance with the standard of care or of an extrinsic cause.

Professional controversy

Determine whether credible experts support the practice the defendant followed; if so, the court will not arbitrate, and the claim will fail under art. 2803 CCQ.

Glossary

Authority of factautorité de fait: The persuasive weight of a prior judgment admitted as relevant evidence without binding the civil court as res judicata.
Burden of prooffardeau de la preuve: The obligation of the party asserting a right to prove the facts supporting the claim (art. 2803 CCQ).
Code of deontologycode de déontologie: The regulation adopted by a professional order setting out the ethical and professional duties of its members.
Contemporaneous notecaractère contemporain: An entry made at or near the time of the event it describes, carrying greater probative force than a note written later.
Deontologydéontologie: The professional and ethical duties imposed on members of a profession, codified for physicians in the Code de déontologie des médecins, RLRQ c M-9, r 17.
Direct proofpreuve directe: Proof of fault by evidence of the faulty act itself, without recourse to inference.
Disciplinary councilconseil de discipline: The tribunal of a professional order that hears complaints against members and decides on a balance of probabilities.
Elementary norm of prudencenorme élémentaire de prudence: A statutory, regulatory, or deontological rule that expresses a basic duty of care; breaching it is a civil fault under Morin c. Blais.
Medical recorddossier médical: The file kept by a physician or hospital in which examinations, observations, orders, and interventions are recorded; received in evidence as prima facie proof of the facts it relates.
Presumption of factprésomption de fait: An inference from known facts to an unknown fact, admissible only if serious, precise, and concordant (art. 2849 CCQ).
Prima facie proofpreuve prima facie: Evidence sufficient to establish a fact unless contradicted or explained by the opposing party.
Rules of the artrègles de l'art: The recognized standards of good medical practice at the relevant time, drawn from usages, guidelines, and scientific consensus.
Soft lawdroit souple: Recommendations, guidelines, charters, and codes of conduct that produce legal effects without being formally binding.
Syndic's inquiryenquête du syndic: The investigation of a complaint by the syndic of a professional order; unlike a disciplinary judgment, it is not relevant evidence in a civil action.

References and Further Reading

Civil Code of Quebec: arts. 1457, 2803, 2849.
Code de déontologie des médecins, RLRQ c M-9, r 17: arts. 20, 29, 33, 54.
Selected case law: Ares v. Venner, [1970] SCR 608; Moreau c. Fugère, 2002 CanLII 143 (QC CS); M.J.R. c. Girard, 2019 QCCS 1937, affirmed 2021 QCCA 826; Laurendeau c. Centre hospitalier de LaSalle, 2015 QCCS 1923; Hamel c. J.C., J.E. 2008-1999 (C.A.); Audet c. Transamerica Life Canada, 2012 QCCA 1746; Leclerc c. Commission municipale du Québec, 2019 QCCS 2373; Landry c. Guimont, 2013 QCCS 2004; G.C. c. Brahm, 2020 QCCS 1844, affirmed 2021 QCCA 303; M.S. c. Lalla, 2010 QCCS 2549; Morin c. Blais, [1977] 1 SCR 570; Caisse populaire de Charlesbourg c. Michaud, 1990 CanLII 3612 (QC CA); Therrien c. Launay, J.E. 2005-664 (C.S.), affirmed 2005 QCCA 665; Kosoian c. Société de transport de Montréal, 2019 SCC 59; SNC-Lavalin inc. c. Deguise, 2020 QCCA 495; Labrie c. Tremblay, 1999 CanLII 13502 (QC CA); Zaccardo c. Chartis Insurance Company of Canada, 2016 QCCS 398, affirmed 2016 QCCA 787; Lalonde c. Tessier, 2011 QCCS 3935; Hôpital de Chicoutimi c. Battikha, 1997 CanLII 9987 (QC CA); Véronneau c. Girouard, 2021 QCCS 1704; Audet c. Landry, 2009 QCCS 3312; Fortier c. Lavoie, 2012 QCCA 754; Doré c. Barreau du Québec, 2012 SCC 12; Deshaies et Raymond inc. c. Kimwood Victoriaville, u.l.c., 2016 QCCQ 13468; Covet c. Jewish General Hospital, [1976] C.S. 1390; Hôpital général de la région de l'Amiante Inc. c. Perron, EYB 1979-135933 (C.A.); Parent c. Lapointe, 1952 CanLII 1 (SCC); Beauchesne c. Ladouceur, [2005] R.R.A. 1245 (C.S.); Mainville c. Cité de la Santé de Laval, [1998] R.J.Q. 2082 (C.S.); Cloutier c. C.H.U.L., 1990 R.J.Q. 717 (C.A.); Lacroix c. Léonard, [1992] R.R.A. 799 (C.S.); S.T. c. Dubois, 2008 QCCS 1431.
Doctrine: Suzanne Philips-Nootens and Robert P. Kouri, Les éléments de la responsabilité médicale, 5th ed., Montréal, Éditions Yvon Blais, 2021; Jean-Louis Baudouin, La responsabilité civile, vol. 2, para. 2-4, and 6th ed., 2003, vol. 1, p. 974, note 28; Jean-Pierre Ménard, "Chronique : Responsabilité médicale et preuve d'expert", Repères, January 2015, EYB2015REP1633; Lucien Maurin, "Le droit souple de la responsabilité civile", (2015) 3 Revue trimestrielle de droit civil 517; Canadian Medical Protective Association, Practical considerations on informed consent (2006, revised 2021).

Disclaimer

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Quebec civil law may evolve through legislation and judicial interpretation. For advice on a specific situation, consult a qualified Quebec lawyer or notary.