Is it possible to sue a Manitoba hospital over events from 20 years ago?

[reuben29]

When I was born there was some negligence on the part of the supervising doctor and the hospital, and long story short I am now severely hearing impaired and missing a kidney due to oxygen starvation. Now that I am of age to do something about it I have been considering suing the hospital for negligence/malpractice. I was wondering if there was some sort of statute of limitations where you have a certain number of years to file a lawsuit. Could anyone help me out with this? If there is no limitation I plan on contacting a lawyer for a free consultation to see if it would be worth pursuing.

[danil70]

If you haven't gotten around to it by now, forget it.

[motega]

This is a question you need to ask your lawyer. First thing you need to find out though is if your parents signed anything waiving the hospitals liability when you were born.

20 years is an exceedingly long time though. I would highly doubt you could sue them now. But then, I'm not a lawyer.

[janyd]

There is a statute of limitations. It is preposterous to sue for something that happened that long ago, the evidence is long gone and quite possible so are some of the participants.

[osryd]

The statute of limitations is probably expired.

Talk to a lawyer to find out for sure.

[benon]

It's too late.

The suit should have been filed on your behalf by your parents who should have spoken to and hired a lawyer to handle the case 20 years ago. Your friend did not bring up a good point, all he did was demonstrate his lack of understanding of the legal system.

The reason for statutes of limitations is so witnesses will have the information fresh in their mind, an so evidence can be timely collected. After 20 years nobody at the hospital will remember the details of your birth and documents that may be critical to your case or the defense's case could have been lost, altered, destroyed, etc. Statute of limitations are not arbitrarily set, they exist for a reason.