Guy J. Collette

Guy grew up in Regina, Saskatchewan, and started working in his father’s painting business from an early age. At 18, he travelled extensively, including hitchhiking around most of Europe and into Asia. In 1974, he moved to Vancouver where he worked as a longshoreman and later as a bottle-maker at Dominion Glass. He subsequently attended BCIT and graduated as a registered psychiatric nurse in 1977. While working at Riverview, Valley View and then the Maples, he completed a degree in psychology at Simon Fraser University. He attended law school at the University of Victoria and was admitted to practise law in British Columbia in 1987. Guy married his wife, Ann, in 1978 and the couple have two adult children.

From the outset, Guy’s law practice has focused exclusively on acting for injury victims. Guy frequently acts for clients whose cases present complicated medical and legal issues. He has achieved successful trial judgments and settlements on behalf of his clients in major personal injury and medical negligence cases. Guy has acted for accident victims who have suffered a range of injuries, including traumatic brain injuries and spinal cord injuries.

In his medical negligence practice, Guy has successfully acted for clients who have sustained serious injury at the hands of medical practitioners and hospitals, including clients who have undergone unnecessary medical procedures, misdiagnoses including HIV, heart attack and cancer, obstetric and gynecological injuries and spinal cord injuries.

Guy has successfully argued a number of landmark cases that further the rights of victims. Guy fought and won a case at the British Columbia Court of Appeal that helps define an insurance company’s duty to the people it insures. In a precedent-setting case, Guy represented 22 women who were sexually assaulted by a doctor. The British Columbia Supreme Court held that the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia could owe a duty of care to the patients of the doctors it regulates. It was the first case in the Common Law where a lawsuit was permitted to proceed against a regulatory body for the actions of the professionals it regulates. The case was confirmed by the British Columbia Court of Appeal and leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada was denied.

Guy is a longstanding member of the British Columbia Trial Lawyers Association, Canadian Bar Association, Vancouver Bar Association, Medical Legal Society and the American Association for Justice.