The plaintiff attended the defendant hospital for treatment of a wrist injury. Five days later she received a mailed copy of an x-ray report showing a wrist fracture, which was unsigned. Approximately three years later, she reached the age of majority. Nearly two years after that, she commenced an action for damages against the defendant hospital and the doctor who assessed her at the hospital. In their statement of defence, the defendants pleaded that the report was reviewed by an additional physician at the clinic who attempted to contact the plaintiff to advise her of the x-ray findings. More than three years later, the hospital advised the plaintiff of the identity of the doctor who reviewed the x-ray report. A year after receiving this information, the plaintiff moved to amend the statement of claim to add the reviewing doctor as a defendant. The existing defendants opposed the motion on the basis that the claim as against the proposed defendant was statute-barred by the Limitations Act. The motion judge held that it was not because the plaintiff did not have sufficient identifying information of the proposed defendant until one year before the amendment motion. The decision was reversed on appeal. The Court of Appeal reasoned that plaintiff failed to provide evidence that she would not have identified the reviewing doctor’s identity sooner had she exercised reasonable diligence on learning of the involvement of a second doctor.
