"Louise Reynold's lawsuit against former doctor Charles Smith, the Province of Ontario and one other party has been settled, the Charles Smith Blog has learned.
Lawyer Peter Wardle confirmed that Ms. Reynolds had accepted the settlement but said he was unable to disclose the amount under the terms of settlement.
"She is very pleased that the litigation is ended," Wardle told this Blog."
HAROLD LEVY; PUBLISHER; THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG;
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am pleased to report that Louise Reynolds has concluded a settlement with Charles Smith, the Government of Ontario and one other party - in spite of Smith's unsuccessful assault on the lawsuit in the courts. The settlement will put to rest the Kingston police force's ugly attempt to conceal its inept, bungled investigation by continuing to blame Reynolds - even after it was made patently clear that Sharon had been killed by a pit bull. Louise Reynolds suffered horribly as a result of the bungled investigation and the oppressive prosecution. But she showed enormous courage and dignity throughout and, assisted brilliantly by Toronto lawyer Peter Wardle, went on to defeat Smith's procedural attack on her lawsuit which, if successful, would have prevented any of his victims from adding him to their lawsuits. Wardle told this Blog that Louise Reynolds is "very pleased that the lawsuit is ended". This is good news - especially since it has taken Reynolds more than a decade to bring Dr. Smith and the Ontario government to account in the civil courts. I hope that it will help her to look forward and get on with her life.HAROLD LEVY; PUBLISHER; THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG;
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BACKGROUND: The prosecution of Louise Reynolds for the second-degree murder of her seven-year-old daughter Sharon, was Canada's very own "Dingo" case, and involved none other than Dr. Charles Smith. Smith stubbornly held on to his opinion that Sharon had died after receiving eighty-one knife and scissors wounds - in spite of the clear signs - that should have been evident to a real forensic pathologist that Sharon had been savaged by a Pit Bull in the basement of the family home. As Justice Stephen Goudge noted in the report of his public inquiry, Smith tended "to mislead the court" by overstating his knowledge in a particular area, rather than acknowledging the limits to his expertise. "When Dr. Smith performed the post-mortem examination in Sharon's cases, he had little experience with either stab wounds or dog bites. He had only seen one or two cases of each kind. At the preliminary hearing, however, Dr. Smith left the impression that he had significant experience with both. Dr. Smith told the court: "I've seen dog wounds, I've seen coyote wounds, I've seen wolf wounds. I recently went to the archipelago of islands owned by another country up near the North Pole and had occasion to study osteology and look at patterns of wounding from polar bears. His attempt to so exaggerate his abilities disguised his lack of relevant expertise." Smith's unscientific, utterly ignorant opinion, placed Louise Reynolds in a hell in which she was wrongly arrested as a murderer in her small city, imprisoned, and experiencing the horror of having her other children seized from her by the authorities. Similarly, Lindy Chamberlain, a bereaved mother, was branded as a killer and placed in her own hell, as a result of the Crown's forensic authorities who were oh so certain about their faulty opinions.
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Louise Reynolds lawsuit against former doctor Charles Smith, the Province of Ontario and one other party has been settled, the Charles Smith Blog has learned.
Lawyer Peter Wardle confirmed that a settlement had been reached but said that he was unable to disclose the amount involved because of its terms.
"She is very pleased that the litigation is ended," Wardle told this Blog.
Louise Reynolds filed a lawsuit targeting the Kingston, Ontario Police Force, Smith and another doctor and the Ontario Government but later dropped the police from her statement of claim.
In an amended, amended statement of claim filed on February 8, 2001, Ms. Reynolds sued, in part, for:
General damages: $5,000,000.
Punitive, aggravated and exemplary damages: $1,000,000;
Special damages: $1,000,000.
As her amended statement of claim alleged (in part):
Para 2: The case concerns the arrest, detention and prosecution of Reynolds in connection with the death of her seven-year old daughter, Sharon Reynolds, on June 12, 1997;
Para 3: Sharon Reynolds was attacked and killed by a dog, a Staffordshire Pit Bull Terrier named Hat Trick in the basement of her family home;
Para 4: As a consequence of the wrongful prosecution of the defendants, Reynolds was arrested, charged, detained and prosecuted on a charge of second degree murder, accused of killing her own little daughter in a savage attack. The alleged crime was widely reported and lead to an on-going campaign of vilification of Reynolds in the community where she lived her entire life.
Para 5: As a consequence of the wrongful conduct of the defendants, Reynolds was detained in jail without bail from June 26, 1997 until April 26, 1999 and was detained further in a secure residential facility in Barrie from April 26, 1999 until January 25, 2001, when the charges against her were withdrawn. During the period of her incarceration, Reynolds lost all of her property. Her daughter ....was taken away from her and placed for adoption, and Reynolds was prohibited from all contact with her four surviving children. Reynolds herself became physically and mentally ill...
Para: 52: Dr. Smith was mislead about the circumstances by the police. He then conducted an incompetent examination of Sharon's body. It is now known that Sharon's body had multiple bite marks, inflicted by a dog about the size and type of Hat Trick (although an exact match with Hat Trick is not possible, since the dog's teeth and jaws were destroyed). Notwithstanding these facts, Dr. Smith opined that there were no bite marks on Sharon's body, and that all of the wounds were inflicted by a sharp tool such as a pair of scissors."
The statement of claim also alleged that Smith conducted his investigation into Sharon's death for "improper purposes" such as assisting the police in securing Reynold's conviction, self-aggrandizement (appearing secure and confident in his conclusions in order to increase his influence and stature within his professional community and the police), and avoiding professional embarrassment.
Smith held up Reynold's lawsuit (and lawsuits launched by other wrongly accused victims) for several years by arguing that witness such as himself who testify for the prosecution are immune from civil lawsuits because of crown immunity - until the Ontario Court gave Reynolds the green light in March, 2007.
“The essence of Ms. Reynolds’ claims against Dr. Smith is in respect to his role as a public official investigating a suspicious death … and not his role in testifying in her criminal prosecution,” Justice Stephen Borins wrote on behalf of the unanimous panel.
(The late Justice Stephen Borins is one of my heroes. His dissenting Ontario Court of Appeal judgment in the William Mullins-Johnson case played a significant role in Bill Mullins-Johnson's ultimate acquittal and exoneration (especially his analysis of the deeply lacking Crown's forensic evidence in the case.) His judgment for the Court in the Reynold's case was a pivotal factor in helping ensure justice for Smith's victims. Besides all that he was a very fine human being who cared deeply about our criminal justice system;)
Although the Kingston Police Force was dropped from the lawsuit, the statement of claim contains the following allegations:
Para 40: The police developed a theory that Reynolds discovered that Sharon had head lice and flew into a rage as a result, attacking her head with a pair of scissors and killing Sharon as a consequence.
Para 41: This theory was adopted so early in the investigation that the police neglected to investigate obvious alternative theories, including the theory that the pit bull, Hat Trick, attacked and killed Sharon. Over the course of the investigation, substantial evidence emerged leading to that conclusion, and the police failed to take reasonable steps to investigate this evidence and consider this theory of the case. In so doing the police were grossly incompetent, willfully blind, and/or actively malicious, for reasons known to them and not to Reynolds. In particular:
a): the police learned on June 16, 1997, that the pit bull Hat Trick had been present in the basement of the home at around the time that Sharon disappeared;
b): the police learned on June 19, 1997, that the dog's feces appeared to contain hair shortly after the time of Sharon's death;
c): the police learned that on the night of Sharon's death, hat Trick's owner, Gary Lee, had hosed the dog down because it was soaked in red liquid;
d); the police learned that subsequent to Sharon's death, Hat Trick's character seemed changed and violent;
Para 42: Notwithstanding all of this evidence the police did not take possession of the dog to conduct forensic tests upon it, observe it, or otherwise investigate the possibility that the dog was responsible for or otherwise involved in Sharon's death.
Para 43: Hat Trick's violent and erratic behavior continued after Sharon's death, and the police were advised so by the dog's owner, Gary Lee. As a consequence, the police took the dog to a veterinarian to have the dog put to sleep and tested for rabies. The test came back negative. However, in arranging for this test, the police precipitated the destruction of of crucial evidence: the dog's head was destroyed by the veterinarian as part of the usual protocol for handling animals suspected of being rabid. The head could have been preserved and would have been had the police warned the veterinarian that the head could be important evidence in a murder investigation. However, the police failed to take reasonable or any steps to ensure that this evidence would be secured. A cast of Hat Trick's jaw and teeth could have been crucial evidence in establishing wounds on Sharon's body were, or could have been, inflicted by the dog. Such cast was never made.
Para 44: Accordingly, police failed to take reasonable steps to investigate the role of the dog in Sharon's death, and actively destroyed evidence that could have linked the dog to the death.
Louise Reynold's settlement follows the $4,25 million settlement the Government of Ontario reached with William Mullins-Johnson which was announced in October, 2010. Bill Mullins-Johnson spent more than 12 years in prison after being wrongfully charged and convicted of 1st degree murder. The police alleged, based on Smith's opinion, that Mullins-Johnson had sodomized and then murdered his four and a half year old niece Valin. It is now known following independent pathological examination that Valin was neither sodomized or murdered but had tragically died of natural causes - possibly after choking on her own vomit while sleeping.
In August, 2010, the Ontario government announced compensation of up to $250,000 for Smith's victims which even if accepted left them free to pursue lawsuits in the Courts.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=120008354894645705&postID=8369513443994476774
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com
