Expert Witness (Dental)

Guerrero v Trillium Dental Centre, 2014 ONSC 3871

[11] The issue in the present case of whether the whitening procedure constituted medical malpractice does not eliminate the need for the plaintiff to tender expert evidence. It is a question of whether a lay expert may be qualified to provide the necessary opinion evidence, which is required in any event.

[12] A respondent faced with a motion for summary judgment must lead trump or risk losing. The plaintiff has known for months that the defendants contended that expert evidence was required. Its absence dooms the plaintiff’s claim that the procedure was incompetently performed, as well as the allegations of breach of contract, to failure. (See Claus v. Wolfman, 1999 CanLII 14824 (ON SC), [1999] O.J. No. 5023 (Ont. S.C.J.) at paras. 4, 12 and 23; aff’d 2000 CanLII 22728 (ON CA), [2000] O.J. No. 4818 (Ont. C.A.).