I missed this yesterday. We’ve written about Barbara Farlow’s struggle for her daughter Annie before. Here’s another item:
Judge Thea Herman is to decide on a request by Sick Kids and two defendant doctors to elevate the case to Ontario Superior Court, with its stricter procedural safeguards and rules of evidence.
If Mrs. Farlow wins, the case will proceed as a “small claim,” and two doctors at Canada’s top pediatric hospital will not only have to defend against allegations they deliberately killed a baby because she had a fatal genetic abnormality, but they will do so in a forum designed for minor disputes over unpaid bills, encroaching fences and overhanging trees.
But if she loses and the case is moved up, it will mark the likely end of an epic legal battle for understanding and closure — in the offices of the Chief Coroner, the Privacy Commissioner, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, even a Catholic archbishop — that has turned Mrs. Farlow, a former automotive engineer and mother of nine, into a powerhouse patients’ rights activist, with supporters across North America.
The article says a decision was expected yesterday, but I have not heard what that decision was. I’ll post it when I find out.