Guirineau vs. Seger et al
In the Supreme Court of British Columbia
Docket: C982750
Nathan H. Smith, Q.C. for the Plaintiffs

"Now we can give him the best life we can."

The headline in the Vancouver Sun on Wednesday, February 28, 2001, summarized the reaction of the Guerineau family when they received a multi-million dollar award for their son’s birth injuries. Born clinically dead after his mother’s uterus ruptured as she awaited his birth, Jessie Guerineau was resuscitated, but still has no bladder or bowel control and cannot communicate. He is expected to live until age 20. His requirement for family care during those years will be enormous.
In presenting the Guerineau’s case, expert nursing evidence introduced by Nathan Smith and his legal team played a deciding role in the finding of negligence on the part of attending nurses who failed to detect the problem and waited too long to call the on-call obstetrician and the Guerineaus’ family physician.
In her reasons for judgment, the presiding Justice praised the quality of the Guerineaus’ legal counsel: “There is no question, in my view, having presided at the trial for 12 days, that not only was there a tremendous amount of work which was undertaken prior to trial, but that work undertaken while the trial was underway was of the highest level…There is nothing, in my view, which Mr. Smith could have done, both before the trial and while trial was underway, to have prosecuted Jesse’s claim more expertly. I have not seen counsel work as fine as that in a long time.”

JUDGEMENT $2.7 MILLION

”The work preparing for a trial can be long and arduous. So can the trial itself. When so much is at stake in the lives and futures of the people involved, as in this case, every hour we spent was worth it, because justice always is.”
—Nathan H. Smith, Q.C.
on Guerineau vs. Seger et al.