Lawyer's letters with medical malpractice plaintiff were professional and polite, ruling says
In a medical malpractice case, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice disagreed with the patient’s argument that threats, intimidation, and coercion caused her to enter an improvident settlement agreement put forward by the lawyer acting for the doctors.
The plaintiff in Lucuta v. Stevens, 2025 ONSC 1576 had a knee injury. In 2010, two doctors treated her for this injury at Grand River Hospital in Kitchener, Ontario. In 2014, she brought a medical malpractice suit alleging that these doctors negligently treated her and performed some of the treatment without her informed consent.
The plaintiff also filed a complaint challenging the two doctors’ conduct before the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario in 2017 and later requested a review of the decision of the regulator’s Inquiries, Complaints and Reports Committee.
In March 2019, the hospital successfully moved for summary judgment. In June 2019, the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board held a hearing of the plaintiff’s case. That same day, a lawyer acting for the doctors wrote to the plaintiff with an offer to settle.
The plaintiff accepted the doctors’ settlement proposal in August 2019; signed a consent to an order dismissing the action without costs on Sept. 5, 2019; and signed a final release for each doctor on Sept. 23, 2019.
In each release, the plaintiff acknowledged that she had the opportunity to receive independent legal advice, that she carefully read the release, and that she signed it “voluntarily and freely and without any form of duress being exerted.”
On Sept. 25, 2019, the court dismissed the action without costs. However, in September 2023, the plaintiff moved to set aside the court order dismissing her action.
The plaintiff argued that she received serious threats around the time of a board hearing and a pre-trial conference, was under economic duress when she received the lawyer’s letters seeking to settle, and was coerced to sign the consent and the releases. The defendants countered that there was no material inequality of bargaining power.
The Superior Court of Justice of Ontario dismissed the motion of the plaintiff. First, the court noted that the plaintiff had legal training and dealt properly with the legal process until the moment that she reached a settlement with the doctors’ lawyer.
The court saw no contemporaneous documentary evidence showing that the plaintiff was coerced, threatened, or intimidated; that the doctors took advantage of her; or that the settlement reached was improvident.
The court ruled that the lawyer’s letters were professional and polite, accurately stated the risks of failing to settle, and urged the plaintiff to seek independent legal advice. On the other hand, the court said that the plaintiff’s letter accepting the settlement offer revealed no concerns regarding the nature, tone, or tenor of the communications leading to the settlement.
The court added that the plaintiff signed the consent and final releases without objection and even acknowledged that she was signing the releases “voluntarily and freely and without any form of duress being exerted.”
While the court previously dismissed the action without awarding costs or recognizing the harms experienced by the plaintiff, this did not amount to evidence of an improvident bargain, the court noted. The settlement substantially benefited the plaintiff and allowed her to avoid the risk of paying a large costs award if she lost at trial, the court further noted.
Lastly, the court found that the plaintiff provided affidavits that she prepared years after the events with the allegedly coercive conduct. The affidavits included vague and uncorroborated allegations, lacked credibility, and fell short of giving a reason to overturn the prior order in this matter, the court said.
