ABSTRACT
In all the other above-named provinces, there is no legislation either requiring or authorising a physician to disclose AIDS-related patient information to a patient’s partner.
In C v D (1925) 1 DLR 734, the plaintiff, a young girl, alleged that the defendant physician had slandered her when he advised one of his patients that she had a venereal disease and should not, therefore, continue sharing a bed with the patient’s own daughter. It must be noted that the plaintiff was not a patient of the defendant and indeed, the plaintiff’s doctor was another doctor. Riddell J ruled that the defendant had been under a moral, but not a legal duty to warn his patient. As he put it: ‘I am of opinion that any medical man – while there is, or may be, no legal obligation cast upon him to do so – owes a moral duty to those for whom he is family physician to warn them of danger of venereal infection concerning which he has credible information.’ He referred to the Ontario legislation which dealt with communicable disease reporting, and emphasised that none of the Acts specifically made it the legal duty of a physician to report communicable disease except to the health officer. Consequently, Riddell J held that the defendant had established a defence of qualified privilege since he had an honest and reasonable belief that the plaintiff was infected with a venereal disease and had acted under a sense of moral duty and without malice. Therefore, the plaintiff’s action was dismissed.
