Professional negligence claims arise from disciplinary proceedings against family physician
The Supreme Court of British Columbia has struck out some portions of a lawsuit filed by a family physician against the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia, its legal counsel, and numerous individual doctors.
This matter arose from a series of disciplinary proceedings involving the plaintiff physician, including a suspension in 2018. This suspension followed an investigation into the plaintiff’s conduct and health, which included psychiatric and addiction assessments by doctors.
The College lifted the suspension in June 2020. However, certain conditions imposed upon the plaintiff’s medical practice remained in place.
In June 2022, the plaintiff filed a civil claim alleging professional negligence, bad faith, and intentional infliction of mental distress against the College, a lawyer who represented the College, and the individual physicians involved in the assessments. The plaintiff also alleged improper handling of certain freedom of information requests made to the College.
The defendants brought applications to strike the plaintiff’s claims under the Supreme Court Civil Rules, B.C. Reg 168/2009.
In Nesbitt v College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia, 2024 BCSC 1661, the British Columbia Supreme Court gave the plaintiff an opportunity to amend some claims relating to allegations of bad faith and intentional infliction of mental distress. If not amended, the suit would be struck. The court struck the rest of the original claims without leave to amend.
The court ruled that the claims against the College and its officials should fail based on statutory immunity under BC’s Health Professions Act, 1996 and BC’s Disciplinary Authority Protection Act, 1996. These statutes protected the College and its agents from liability for actions taken in good faith while performing their regulatory duties.
However, the court allowed the plaintiff to amend the claims to allege bad faith. Alleging that the defendants acted with malice or gross negligence could potentially overcome this statutory immunity, the court noted.
The court also allowed the plaintiff to amend the claim for intentional infliction of mental distress against the College and the individual doctors. The court found the initial pleading insufficient but decided that an amendment could potentially salvage this claim.
Next, the court struck the plaintiff’s claims of professional negligence against the College and the individual doctors. The College and its officials, which performed quasi-judicial functions, did not owe a private law duty of care to the plaintiff in their regulatory capacity, the court said.
The court struck the professional negligence claims against the individual doctors as statute-barred under BC’s Limitation Act, 2012. The plaintiff knew or should have known about the alleged negligence by September 2018 but did not file this lawsuit until June 2022, the court said. Thus, the two-year limitation period had expired, the court concluded.
The court struck the plaintiff’s independent tort claim alleging that the College acted in bad faith. The court emphasized that there was no stand-alone tort of bad faith in BC.
Lastly, the court struck all claims against the lawyer who represented the College during the disciplinary proceedings. The court noted that a lawyer acting for one party did not owe a duty of care to the opposing party.
The court ruled that the lawyer’s actions – which included describing the plaintiff’s freedom of information requests as frivolous and vexatious – were not outrageous enough to support a claim for intentional infliction of mental distress.
