Legal History Commons^™

Canada’S First Malpractice Crisis: Medical Negligence In The Late Nineteenth Century, R. Blake Brown

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This article describes and explains the first Canadian medical malpractice crisis. While malpractice had emerged as a prominent legal issue in the United States by the mid nineteenth century, Canadian doctors first began to express concerns with a growth in malpractice litigation in the late nineteenth century. Physicians claimed that lawsuits damaged reputations and forced them to spend lavishly on defending themselves. Doctors blamed lawyers for drumming up spurious lawsuits and argued that ignorant or malicious jurors tended to side with plaintiffs. Evidence, however, points to additional factors that contributed to litigation. Medical professionals in rural areas sometimes avoided lengthy …