What is the limitation period for a plaintiff to sue her doctor for negligence?

Ontario, Canada


The following excerpt is from Shauna Thompson v. Dr. Yogi Sehgal, 2012 ONSC 3258 (CanLII):

Further, Justice Swinton’s decision in Nichols v. Young,[7] directly addresses the point and evidently accepts the proposition that the entire focus of a plaintiffs response after she was first diagnosed could and likely would be on obtaining treatment and getting better, not on commencing a lawsuit. In that case, the plaintiff sued her doctor for negligence in the prescription of birth control pills. She developed an illness known as DVT, which required hospitalization for 10 days. She commenced her action on August 5, 1999. At that time when the limitation period was one year, the defendants argued that she knew or ought to have known all of the necessary facts to commence her claim by March or April of 1998, and thus that the action was statute barred. However, Justice Swinton accepted the plaintiff's evidence that she did not understand that her injury might have been caused by the negligence of her doctor until the early fall of 1998, having regard to the fact that she was too sick to commence her action before then.[8]

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