"IN HIS SUIT, SMITH IS ASKING THE HEALTH REGION FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOSS OF SALARY, EMPLOYMENT BENEFITS, STIPENDS, PROFESSIONAL STATURE AND EMOTIONAL STRESS. HE'S ALSO CLAIMING DAMAGES "EXCEEDING $50,000.""
JANET FRENCH: SASKATOON STARPHOENIX;
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The Saskatoon StarPhoenix reports that Dr. Charles Smith has sued the Saskatoon Regional Health Authority for wrongful dismissal.
As Janet French reports, the lawsuit follows a 2006 ruling by a tribunal that Smith had been treated unfairly when a one-year contract had been cut short.
The tribunal's decision will be reported in the next posting of the Blog:
For now, here is the StarPhoenix story - dated February 21, 2008;
SASKATOON -- Disgraced forensic pathologist Dr. Charles Smith -- whose faulty testimony landed many innocent people in jail in Ontario, and at least one person on death row in the U.S. -- is suing the Saskatoon Regional Health Authority for wrongful dismissal.
The suit comes in the wake of a 2006 tribunal that ruled the regional health authority was "unfair, unreasonable, and wrong" when it denied Dr. Smith hospital privileges in Saskatoon, cutting short a one-year contract to work as a surgical pathologist at Saskatoon City Hospital.
"There was no just cause for the dismissal of the plaintiff, nor has reasonable notice been provided, nor has the plaintiff been paid in lieu of reasonable notice," says Dr. Smith's statement of claim, filed in Saskatchewan's Court of Queen's Bench on Dec. 20.
Saskatoon lawyer Gary Bainbridge filed the suit while a public inquiry in Ontario was investigating Dr. Smith's questionable conclusions during his 20-year career as Ontario's top pediatric forensic pathologist .
Last month at the inquiry, Dr. Smith apologized repeatedly for his conduct over the years, saying he had "woefully inadequate" training in child forensic pathology when he began doing autopsies on children who had died suspiciously.
He admitted he had sloppy work habits and procrastinated, that he contributed to a miscarriage of justice, that he fabricated a tale about a judge who disagreed with his conclusions, and that when he testified as an expert witness, he thought he was supposed to be on the Crown's side, not an independent scientist.
A review of Dr. Smith's work, which prompted the inquiry, found Dr. Smith made significant errors in 20 of 45 suspicious child deaths he helped investigate between 1991 and 2001. In 12 of those cases, people were criminally convicted.
Dr. Smith also testified at a U.S. child-murder trial that ended with the conviction of the victim's father and a recommendation the man be put to death.
Dr. Smith suggested at the Ohio trial of Christopher Fuller that two-year-old Randi Fuller had been suffocated, most likely by someone putting pressure on her neck or chest. Though the jury urged in 2000 that Mr. Fuller be executed, the judge cited mitigating factors and imposed a sentence of life in prison.
When scrutiny of Dr, Smith's work intensified in 2005, he left Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children and began a one-year contract in Saskatoon as a surgical pathologist in September of that year. However, when it came time for the Saskatoon Health Region's board to approve his hospital privileges -- a process that's usually a rubber stamp -- the board said no.
With no hospital privileges, the health region terminated his contract in December 2005.
Dr. Smith appealed the board's decision to a rarely-used provincial tribunal, and in November 2006 the tribunal ruled the regional health authority made a mistake by denying Smith privileges.
The tribunal said it would have ordered the health region to reinstate Dr. Smith's hospital privileges, but his licence had expired and he couldn't then legally practise medicine in Saskatchewan.
Bryan Salte, associate registrar with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan, said Dr. Smith re-applied for his Saskatchewan licence, which was granted from February to December 2007. The licence included a condition that he not practise forensic pathology, Mr. Salte said.
Right now, Dr. Smith is paying $300 a year for an "inactive" licence in Saskatchewan, meaning he can apply to have his licence reinstated with less paperwork than starting from scratch.
James Winkel, a spokesman with the Saskatoon Health Region, says Dr. Smith has since applied for two job postings for anatomic pathologists in Saskatoon. He did not get either job, and the positions were filled by other candidates, Mr. Winkel said.
"He's a pediatric pathologist, so the qualifications didn't fit the positions," he said.
Evert van Olst, legal counsel for the health region, said he could not comment on Dr. Smith's suit because the region has not yet been served with a statement of claim.
"This is the first I've heard about it," Mr. van Olst said. "I'm assuming that he issued it out of some kind of abundance of caution, and maybe doesn't have an intention of serving it."
The tribunal never gave the health region a solution to deal with Dr. Smith's "unfair" treatment, Mr. van Olst added.
"Obviously, Dr. Smith has been very much otherwise engaged, so he could not be able to provide services in any event," he added.
Dr. Smith could not be reached for comment, nor could his lawyer, Mr. Bainbridge.
Saskatoon StarPhoenix
Harold Levy: hlevy15@gmail.com;
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