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John Adair and Ritika Rai were successful appeal counsel in this case, the central issue in which was whether a psychiatrist can owe a duty of care to a patient's family members in respect of the patient's treatment. John and Ritika successfully argued that the psychiatrists in this case, treating a patient with known violent tendencies, may indeed have owed such a duty to the patient's parents. The Court of Appeal accordingly set aside the motion judge's decision striking the negligent treatment claim, allowing the claim to proceed to trial on a full evidentiary record. 

This case arises from tragic facts. Bradley McKee, a 27 year-old with a long history of serious addiction and mental health challenges, fatally stabbed his father during a psychotic episode. His mother sued two of Bradley's psychiatrists for negligence, alleging they failed to properly treat Bradley and failed to warn his family of the danger he posed. 

The defendant psychiatrists successfully moved for an order striking Ms. McKee's negligence claim, without leave to amend. The motion judge found that the negligence claim disclosed no reasonable cause of action, reasoning that the psychiatrists could not possibly have owed Ms. McKee a duty of care in respect of her son's treatment since any such duty would necessarily conflict with the duty they owed to their patient, Bradley. 

The Court of Appeal disagreed and reversed the motion judge's order striking Ms. McKee's negligence claim. The panel held that although the pleaded duty did not fall within an established category of duty of care, it was not "doomed to fail" and therefore ought not be struck at the pleadings stage. The question of whether the pleaded duty could be legally recognized ought to be decided at trial on a full evidentiary record.

In particular, the Court of Appeal held that the motion judge erred applying the Anns/Cooper test for establishing a duty of care, and in finding, in the absence of a full evidentiary record, that the potential for conflicting duties necessarily made a duty to Ms. McKee untenable. Rather, the proximity (i.e., connection) between the psychiatrists and Bradley's parents - with whom Bradley lived, towards whom Bradley had a demonstrated propensity for violence, and who had themselves raised their concerns about Bradley's behaviour directly to the psychiatrists - could reasonably support a finding that a duty of care existed. The Court of Appeal reinstated Ms. McKee's negligence claim to allow her to make that argument at trial.