Hospital denies responsibility in $8M switched-at-birth lawsuit

Lawyers for Sault Area Hospital say the institution is not responsible in an $8-million lawsuit launched by two local men who claim they were switched at birth more than 70 years ago at the former General Hospital site downtown.

In their statement of claim, Howard Dupuis and Leslie Gagnon, both age 71, claim recent DNA testing has proven they each went home with the wrong parents after both were born in the now-shuttered Catholic hospital on March 8, 1952.

As SooToday first reported last summer, both men are each seeking $2 million in general damages, $1 million in special damages and $1 million in punitive damages against the hospital and the unnamed nurse for the pain and suffering they claim to have endured as a result of the negligence of the defendants.

The claims have not yet been tested in court.

A statement of defence filed last month by Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, lawyers for Sault Area Hospital (SAH), says the current public hospital, which opened in 2011, is not responsible for anything that may have happened at the former site.

“The defendant denies that there is any fiduciary duty between the hospital and the plaintiffs as alleged," the statement of defence reads. "In the alternative, the defendant denies that there was any breach thereof that caused or contributed to the damages alleged by the plaintiffs."

The hospital’s defence also denies the plaintiffs sustained the damages as alleged and, if they did sustain them, that the $8 million claim is "excessive and too remote." It also argues the allegations far exceed the 15-year limitation period typical in medical malpractice suits in Ontario.

The hospital's statement of defence notes that the institution has no medical records, birth records or employment records in its possession that date back to 1952.

As a result, the defence argues that the lawsuit contains no reasonable course of action and should be dismissed, with legal costs awarded to SAH. 

Dupuis and Gagnon allege DNA testing performed in September 2021 revealed that the parents they each went home with — and grew up with — were not their biological mother and father. In effect, each man ended up living the life intended for the other.

“The only connection that the plaintiffs had was that they were born in the same defendant hospital, on the same day and at very close to the same time of day,” the lawsuit reads. 

Loretta Dupuis, said to be the biological mother of Leslie Gagnon, was admitted to the hospital on March 8, 1952. On the same date, Katherine Gagnon was also admitted, giving birth the next day to Howard Dupuis.

The lawsuit alleges that both babies were kept in a separate nursery room that could only be accessed by hospital staff and that the hospital had full control and access over the plaintiffs as newborns.

“The plaintiffs’ biological mothers only had access to their newborns while they lay flat in their respective hospital beds,” the claim says. “The defendants would bring the plaintiffs to the plaintiffs’ mothers’ rooms for short visits. After the short visits, the defendants would return the plaintiffs to the nursery room.”