What is the scope of the fiduciary relationship between a doctor and her patient?
Ontario, Canada
The following excerpt is from Bras v. Pietraszek, 2005 CanLII 13800 (ON SC):
In any event, the plaintiff did not provide me with any authority to support the rather broad proposition advanced by her with regard to the scope of fiduciary duty. Admittedly, Norberg v. Wynrib, 1992 CanLII 65 (SCC), [1992] 2 S.C.R. 226 held that non-medical harm done to a patient in some circumstances will be found to be a breach of fiduciary duty that exists between doctor and patient. But it does seem to me a great stretch to find that a doctor who (even if she is aware of a patient’s emotional vulnerability), assaults her patient, necessarily breaches the fiduciary relationship.
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