Welcome to Cases That Should Have Gone to the Supreme Court of Canada, But Didn’t! This week, lawyer Kyla Lee discusses lawyers acting without instructions
Acumen Law Corporation lawyer Kyla Lee gives her take on a made-in-Canada court case each week and discusses why these cases should have been heard by Canada’s highest court: the Supreme Court of Canada.
Georgiana Masgras was a lawyer who represented somebody who had been seriously injured in an accident and as a result of their injuries, they were comatose. The family of the person injured ultimately decided to take him off of life support.
Ms. Masgras filed an application on behalf of her client without any instructions, to prevent this from occurring. During the period of time when the application was being litigated, Ms. Masgras was able to prevent her client’s body from being used for organ donation because his condition deteriorated so badly.
The court rejected the application and client was taken off life support. The problems that arose for Ms. Masgras, were that she had done all of this without any instructions from her client, and now that her client was deceased, she appealed that order the Court of Appeal. This was also rejected based on the fact that she could not proceed on that basis, and Ms. Masgras was also ordered to pay for the costs of litigation personally.
Ms. Masgras appealed this to the Supreme Court of Canada, who dismissed her appeal.
Watch the video for more.