Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Haimana Romana filed a medical negligence claim arising from treatment he received at the Health Sciences Centre emergency department on July 10, 2022, after presenting with severe chest pain.
   
• The moving defendants — Shared Health, Health Sciences Centre, and Melody Rogocki — brought a motion to strike the plaintiff's Fresh Copy Re-Re-Amended Statement of Claim (the 2025 Amendment) without leave to amend.
   
• Central to the motion was whether the claim was statute-barred on its face, as the original claim was filed on September 4, 2024, more than two years after the cause of action arose on July 10, 2022.
   
• The plaintiff argued the limitation period was tolled by disability under section 7 of The Limitations of Actions Act, R.S.M. 1987, c. L150, asserting he was physically and mentally impaired following the incident.
   
• Despite having been given a prior and final opportunity to amend his pleadings, the plaintiff again failed to plead the material facts required to establish incapacity to manage his affairs for any continuous period sufficient to extend the limitation period.
   
• The 2025 Amendment was also found to constitute an abuse of process for failing to comply with Rule 25.06(1) and the express directions of Associate Judge Lee.

Facts of the case

Haimana Romana attended the Health Sciences Centre emergency department in Winnipeg on July 10, 2022, with severe chest pain. He subsequently filed a statement of claim, followed by an amended statement of claim, both of which were the subject of a prior motion to strike by the defendants — Shared Health, Health Sciences Centre, and Registered Nurse Melody Rogocki, along with a physician defendant named at that time. Associate Judge Lee struck the amended statement of claim in its entirety and granted the plaintiff one final opportunity to amend his pleading, except against the physician defendant. In his written endorsement, Associate Judge Lee identified significant deficiencies in the amended pleading and directed the plaintiff to set out succinctly the cause of action, the duty owed, the breaches alleged, and the damages suffered. The plaintiff filed the Fresh Copy Re-Re-Amended Statement of Claim — referred to as the 2025 Amendment — on May 29, 2025. The moving defendants then brought a motion under Rule 25 of the King's Bench Rules M.R. 553/88 to strike the 2025 Amendment without leave to amend.

Policy and legislative provisions at issue

The governing limitation statute is The Limitations of Actions Act, R.S.M. 1987, c. L150 (the LAA). The plaintiff's 2025 Amendment acknowledged that the claim is governed by the LAA and that the cause of action arose on July 10, 2022. The original claim was filed on September 4, 2024, more than two years after that date, placing it prima facie outside the two-year limitation period. Under Rule 25.11(1)(d), the court may strike all or part of a pleading, with or without leave to amend, where it fails to disclose a reasonable cause of action. The court noted that while limitation defences are ordinarily resolved on summary judgment after pleadings are closed, a claim may be struck where it is clear on its face that the limitation period has expired, citing Abas Auto Inc. v. Superior General Partner Inc., 2015 MBCA 104. Section 7 of the LAA provides that time does not run for limitation purposes while a person is "under a disability," defined to include being "in fact incapable of the management of his affairs because of disease or impairment of his physical or mental condition." Rule 25.06(1) further requires that a pleading contain a concise statement of material facts, not evidence or argument.

Reasoning and analysis

Associate Judge Goldenberg considered whether the 2025 Amendment adequately pleaded facts capable of tolling the limitation period under section 7 of the LAA. Despite Associate Judge Lee's express direction to plead, as material facts, the period during which the plaintiff claimed to have been under a disability, the 2025 Amendment still did not plead that the plaintiff was incapable of managing his affairs for any defined period following July 10, 2022. Paragraphs 86 to 90 of the 2025 Amendment, pleaded under the heading "Tolling of the Limitations of Actions Act," did not expressly plead incapacity to manage affairs. The plaintiff did plead that he suffered a myocardial infarction on July 10, 2022, that he was "physically disabled" between July 10, 2022, and August 2022, and that he experienced an exacerbation of his mental condition, including clinical depression, between July 10, 2022, and August 31, 2022. He further pleaded that his "capacity to comprehend" the events relating to his cardiac condition improved in late August and early September 2022. The court found these allegations amounted to, at most, a temporary physical and psychological impairment affecting comprehension — not an inability to manage his affairs for any continuous period extending to September 4, 2022, which would have been necessary to extend the limitation period to September 4, 2024. The pleadings therefore fell well short of meeting the threshold under section 7 of the LAA.

The court further considered whether the 2025 Amendment constituted an abuse of process under Rule 25.06(1). Associate Judge Goldenberg identified three specific failures: large portions of the 2025 Amendment — particularly paragraphs 13 to 57 — remained devoted to irrelevant narrative, evidentiary assertions, and argument despite Associate Judge Lee's direction to remove such material; allegations relating to a report allegedly prepared by Ms. Gunn-Matson, which Associate Judge Lee had directed be removed, nonetheless remained at paragraphs 50 to 57 of the 2025 Amendment; and paragraph 91 of the 2025 Amendment, spanning two pages, was devoted to the issue of concealed fraud as a basis to extend the limitation period — an argument Associate Judge Lee had already ruled could not be relied upon for that purpose.

Ruling and overall outcome

Associate Judge Goldenberg concluded that the 2025 Amendment both constituted an abuse of process and disclosed a claim that was barred by the applicable limitation period with no prospect of extension. Having been given one final opportunity to file a proper pleading and having failed to do so, the plaintiff was left without recourse. The 2025 Amendment was struck in its entirety without leave to amend. The moving defendants — Shared Health, Health Sciences Centre, and Melody Rogocki — were the successful parties. The plaintiff was ordered to pay the moving defendants' costs of the motion on a Class 2 tariff basis, payable in any event of the cause; no exact quantum was specified in the decision.