The father of a 17-year-old boy who says his son died weeks after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine says he will be appealing a recent decision by the Ontario Superior Court that dismissed the family’s case against Health Canada.
Sean Hartman died on Sept. 27, 2021—33 days after he had taken a first dose of the Health Canada-approved Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine, according to his father, Dan Hartman. Hartman has said his son took the vaccine because he was told it was mandatory if he wanted to play hockey.
Hartman has said on social media that his son was a “perfectly healthy boy” and had no underlying conditions. The official cause of death for Sean was listed as “unascertained” and remains unknown.
The Beeton, Ont., family brought a liability claim forward in 2022, saying they are looking for answers in Sean’s death.
The Ontario Superior Court dismissed the case, saying Health Canada did not have a “duty of care” to individual Canadians inadvertently harmed by pandemic measures.
“The plaintiff’s tragedy is real but there is no private law duty of care made out,” wrote Ontario Superior Court Justice Sandra Antoniani, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.
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“There is no private law duty of care to individual members of the public injured by government core policy decisions in the handling of health emergencies which impact the general population,” she said.
The judge said that the federal health department’s pandemic response was aimed at mitigating the health impact of COVID-19 on the Canadian public, and that “urgent action” was necessary at the time.
“Imposition of a private duty of care would have a negative impact on the ability of the defendants to prioritize the interests of the entire public, with the distraction of fear over the possibility of harm to individual members of the public, and the risk of litigation and unlimited liability,” wrote the judge.
Sean’s family was asking the court to determine if the federal health agency appropriately warned Canadians about the potential risks of taking a COVID vaccine.
In a March 26 video posted on social media, Hartman said he was angry about the court’s dismissal and would appeal the decision.
“They claimed that they did not owe Sean a ‘duty of care,’” he said, “yet they made it mandatory to take [the vaccine] to go to a restaurant, to go to a movie theatre.”
In another social media video Hartman said he’s deeply distraught over the loss of his son.
“Not one day has gone by that I haven’t cried for him, not one. This isn’t grief. This isn’t normal grief. This is torture,” he said.
He also questioned why there has not been an investigation into Sean’s death.
“When a child dies, there’s automatically an investigation, automatically, and because Sean’s cause of death is ‘unascertained,’ the police investigation should still be open,” he said.
The Hartman family has also launched a wrongful death lawsuit against Pfizer.
The Epoch Times reached out to Pfizer for comment on the case. A spokesperson for the company said in an email that the company doesn’t comment on matters of ongoing litigation.
The Epoch Times also reached out to Health Canada but didn’t hear back by publication time.
