Personal Injury Alliance lawyers secured the single highest brain injury judgment in Canadian history. Which is also the single highest personal injury judgment in Canadian history.
In 2009, McLeish Orlando lawyer John McLeish won an $18.4 million judgment at trial for Katherine-Paige MacNeil, a 15-year-old who suffered a catastrophic brain injury. Justice Peter Howden of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice awarded the damages in MacNeil v. Bryan et al. [2009] (S.C.J.) — recorded as the largest personal injury judgment in Canadian history at the time.
This was a trial verdict, not a settlement. That distinction matters. A settlement is negotiated when an insurer concedes some degree of liability and agrees on a number. A trial verdict requires the plaintiff’s lawyers to prove liability and damages before a judge, with the opposing side actively contesting every element. McLeish Orlando took this case to trial and won.
John McLeish was subsequently named Best Lawyers’ Lawyer of the Year for Personal Injury Litigation in Toronto in 2013 — one of the highest peer-designated honours in Canadian legal practice.
Insurance companies and defence counsel track which firms go to trial and what happens when they do. A judgment of this magnitude, won at trial, against a fully contested defence, signals to every insurer in Ontario that McLeish Orlando — and by extension the Personal Injury Alliance — is prepared to litigate to the end. That reputation affects how cases are valued and settled long before any courtroom is involved.
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