http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/EdmontonSun/News/2005/05/25/pf-1054750.html
Wed, May 25, 2005
Hearing on wrongful death held
By CP
CALGARY -- A hearing began yesterday to determine whether the Jehovah's Witness religious order should be brought to trial in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by a man who blames the church for his daughter's death.
Lawrence Hughes filed a $1-million lawsuit last August against the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Canada, Edmonton's Cross Cancer Institute and several doctors and Jehovah's Witnesses.
In his claim, Hughes says the Jehovah's Witness church's policy against blood transfusions prompted the death of his daughter, Bethany Hughes, from acute myeloid leukemia on Sept. 5, 2002.
The Watch Tower Society subsequently filed a motion to strike down the claim made by Hughes.
Ontario lawyer David Gnam, representing the Watch Tower Society, said outside court Hughes's dispute with the church is not a matter for the courts.
"How is it possible to prove that anything caused Bethany to die other than her disease?" said Gnam. "Everything that's been alleged doesn't amount to something for which you can be sued."
A former Jehovah's Witness, Hughes originally blamed both the church and his wife, Arliss Hughes, for allowing their daughter Bethany, a devout Jehovah's Witness, to refuse blood transfusions to help treat her leukemia.
But he removed his estranged wife as a defendant in the lawsuit yesterday, saying she is also a victim.
Bethany died less than six months after she underwent a series of blood transfusions against her wishes after Alberta Child Services assumed custody of her when she refused conventional treatment for the disease.