Is there any case law where a trial judge preferred the recollection of a patient to that of a doctor as to whether the doctor had told the patient about a risk of continuing incontinence after a proposed surgery?

Ontario, Canada


The following excerpt is from Ayana v. Skin Klinic, 2009 CanLII 42042 (ON SC):

The Court of Appeal for British Columbia upheld a contrary result in Bruce v. Sookochoff,[16] where the trial judge had preferred the patient’s recollection to that of the doctor as to whether the doctor had told him about a risk of continuing incontinence after a proposed surgery. The doctor, appealing from the trial judge’s decision, asserted that the judge had misapprehended his evidence, which had been that not only had he mentioned the risk at his meeting with the patient but that this was his usual practice and that his notes referred to incontinence. The doctor argued that the judge had applied a mechanical test to credibility, automatically preferring the patient’s evidence to his own because the patient’s evidence had been based on a single instance of such a discussion whereas the doctor’s had been based on many.

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