CMKM Diamonds Inc. (fka CMKX)

[locogringo]

It doesn't happen very often where a wrongful death lawsuit works it way through the Saskatchewan court system. If you're sick and you live in Saskatchewan and can afford it you go to the Mayo Clinic.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/doctor-not-negligent-in-case-where-woman-lost-limbs-jury-1.667616

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thestarphoenix/obituary.aspx?pid=175216795

Court denies woman's appeal

By Lori Coolican, Saskatchewan News Network; Postmedia News February 25, 2011

The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal has upheld a Saskatoon jury's 2007 decision to dismiss a multimillion-dollar negligence lawsuit brought by a woman who suffered catastrophic injuries after a gynecologist unknowingly nicked her bowel during tubal ligation surgery.

Queen's Bench Justice Grant Currie did not make significant errors in conducting the lengthy civil trial, or in his instructions to the jury, and the resulting verdict was not unreasonable, three appellate court judges concluded in a 43page written decision issued last month.

Lisa Baert, a mother of two, developed septic shock and was readmitted to hospital two days after the outpatient laparoscopic surgery performed by Dr. Kenneth Graham at Lloydminster Hospital on July 14, 1999.

She was 21 years old at the time. The infection almost killed her.

Baert suffered serious brain damage and permanent partial paralysis that left her in a wheelchair.

Doctors were forced to amputate her hands at the wrists, as well as her legs below the knees.

Her husband Mark subsequently launched the lawsuit on the family's behalf against Graham, the health region and three hospital nurses involved in her post-operative care.

Before the suit went to trial, an undisclosed settlement was reached with the hospital and the nurses.

After hearing nine weeks of testimony and argument in the complex trial of her claim against Graham, the all-female six-member jury concluded that the doctor had obtained Baert's informed consent to perform the surgery, and had provided a standard level of care both during and after the procedure.

During the course of the trial, Currie did not allow testimony from other patients who had suffered complications after surgeries performed by Graham.

Among them was a woman from Dawson Creek, B.C., whose bowel was nicked when Graham gave her a tubal ligation there in 2002. Her lawsuit against him was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

The Court of Appeal ruling agrees with Currie's decision not to let the other patients take the witness stand.

Allowing Baert's lawyer to introduce such evidence "was likely to have spawned a series of mini-trials -one in relation to the assertions of each of the other patients -for Dr. Graham would surely have been entitled to challenge the similarities of the situations and the accuracy of the testimony of each of these witnesses, and then to adduce evidence, oral and documentary, for the purpose of refuting the testimony of each," the appellate judges wrote.

Graham stopped working as a doctor after developing health problems in 2003.