In Reibl v Hughes (SCC, 1980), a leading Supreme Court of Canada case, the court held that the reasonableness of a plaintiff's medical choice decisions should be assessed by the standard of what an objectively-reasonable person in the plaintiff's circumstances re age, sex, family and personal circumstances. In this case a key aspect of the court's finding of liability was that there was that the highly risky surgery was not immediately pressing and that the plaintiff would have chosen to defer it until a pension entitlement vested. This causation standard is sometimes called the 'modified objective' standard in that a plaintiff's behaviour and choices are assessed objectively, but in light of the personal circumstances of the particular plaintiff before the court.
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