The plaintiff alleged she was sexually assaulted while in the Witness Protection Program and sought damages against Ontario on theories of negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and breach of contract.
The court found on a balance of probabilities that the sexual assault occurred, but held that the protection team’s private duty of care was limited to protection from the identified outside threat and that no breach of the applicable standard of care was proven, particularly in the absence of expert evidence on the Witness Protection Program standard of care in 1987.
The court further held that legal causation and foreseeability were not established, and rejected the fiduciary and contract claims.
In an alternative assessment, the court would have awarded damages for psychological harm from the assault, but not for COPD, income loss, or housekeeping claims.
