Case information

Civil liability — Damages — Professional obligation of pharmacists — Non-professional third party — Whether Court of Appeal erred in reversing burden of proof — Whether Court of Appeal erred in modifying quantum of damages awarded at trial — Whether Court of Appeal decision departed from principles of civil liability with respect to compensation for injury, presumptions of fact and prescription — Whether court of justice has power to rely on directive public order in ethical matters in order to create obligations or to hold non-professional third party liable.

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

The parties had a business relationship from 2008 to 2019. The applicants operated the commercial part of a pharmacy, and the respondent was responsible for the dispensary. During that period, the applicants allocated to themselves income from commissions, paid by pharmaceutical companies, for the sale of generic drugs. However, that practice is prohibited by the Code of ethics of pharmacists. The respondent brought an action for those amounts to be returned to it.

At trial, the judge ordered the applicants to pay the amount calculated for the 2017 fiscal year only. She refused to do so for the other years because the accuracy of the amounts had not been demonstrated. The Court of Appeal set aside in part that decision by ordering the applicants to pay the amounts received for those other years. It was of the opinion that it is the applicants who should suffer the consequences of the absence of evidence, accounting or other, concerning the quantum.