Ediger v. Johnston, SCC Case No. 34408

Anyone interested in medical malpractice litigation and the quagmire that is the current state of the Supreme Court of Canada’s jurisprudence on factual causation in negligence should listen to the the webcast of the appeal argument in Ediger v. Johnston, SCC case no. 34408, on appeal from 2011 BCCA 253 reversing 2009 BCSC 386. You should glance at the parties’ factums which are available on the SCC’s website or, at the miminum (if you’ve sufficient background) read the Registrar’s summary. If you don’t, you might get the wrong impression that the case is about only whether there was evidence upon which the trial judge could have validly made the findings she did. That’s a valid question. Why that occurred is another valid question. What the consequences of the appeal ought to be is yet a third. Pay close attention to the questions that various members of the SCC panel put to the respondent’s lawyer.