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civile en matière de dommages-intérêts est différente. Le présent cha-
pitre traite de la pertinence de ces actions à la lumière de l’immunité
judiciaire dont jouissent les gouvernements fédéral et provinciaux
(«  la Couronne  »). La première section de ce chapitre aborde l’état du
droit et les derniers développements en matière de responsabilité de
la Couronne au Canada. Puis, la signification et les conséquences des
plus récentes décisions de la Cour suprême du Canada concernant la
responsabilité de l’État dans le contexte de la pandémie de COVID-
19, y compris pour les agissements de ses ministères, fonctionnaires,
agents, sociétés et entrepreneurs indépendants, sont examinées dans
la deuxième section.
The COVID-19 pandemic has already led to legal proceedings
being initiated against long-term care homes. It is reasonable
to assume that lawsuits against public and governmental institu-
tions will follow, led for example by aggrieved families or essential
workers. Doctors, nurses, and long-term care home workers who
were infected with COVID-19 because of a lack of personal protec-
tive equipment (PPE), patients who were infected due to the back
and forth from long-term care homes to hospitals, and individuals
who caught COVID-19 in the community due to lack of testing or
lack of precautionary measures are some of the examples of possi-
ble lawsuits against public and governmental entities. This chapter
addresses the likely success of these actions in light of the immu-
nity from lawsuits that the federal and provincial governments (“the
Crown”) enjoy. While the federal and provincial governments are
accountable before the courts for violations of the Canadian Charter of
RightsÂ
andÂ
Freedoms, the Crown’s liability in tort for damages because
it was negligent is a different matter. As I will demonstrate in this
chapter, establishing the contours of the “Crown” in the context of its
civil liability for a tort is important for understanding the likelihood
of success of lawsuits brought against it, as well as the applicability
of Crown immunity from suit.
In the first section, I discuss the state of the law and recent devel-
opments in relation to the Crown’s liability in Canada. In the second
section, I discuss the meaning and consequences of the Supreme Court
of Canada’s most recent decisions for the Crown’s liability in the con-
text of the COVID-19 pandemic. My conclusion is that prospective
VULNERABLE
The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Title
- VULNERABLE
- Subtitle
- The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Authors
- Vanessa MacDonnell
- Jane Philpott
- Sophie Thériault
- Sridhar Venkatapuram
- Publisher
- Ottawa Press
- Date
- 2020
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 9780776636429
- Size
- 15.2 x 22.8 cm
- Pages
- 648
- Categories
- Coronavirus
- International