Toronto plastic surgeon Dr. Martin Jugenburg has been ordered by an Ontario court to pay $22.5 million to thousands of former patients after secretly recording them at his downtown clinic without their consent.
The decision by Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Schabas caps a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of about 7,000 patients of the Toronto Cosmetic Surgery Institute, which operated inside Toronto's Fairmont Royal York Hotel.
The court found that between Jan. 1, 2017, and Dec. 13, 2018, Jugenburg installed and used 24 surveillance cameras throughout the clinic, including in consultation rooms, examination rooms, and operating areas where patients had a reasonable expectation of privacy, according to People.
Jugenburg, widely known on social media as "Dr. 6ix," was found to have "knowingly invading patients' privacy" and to have breached his fiduciary duty to those in his care, according to the written decision.
The court concluded that patients were not adequately informed that they were being recorded, and that any consent forms or signage used by the clinic did not clearly disclose the existence, scope, and location of the video surveillance system.
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Justice Schabas awarded $21.5 million in aggregate damages for intrusion upon seclusion and related privacy violations, and a further $1 million in punitive damages aimed at denouncing and deterring similar conduct by health professionals.
Surgical patients will receive $5,000 each, while non-surgical patients whose appointments were recorded will receive $500, with exact amounts to be calculated during the claims process, News Wire reported.
The class action followed a 2018 undercover investigation by CBC's "Marketplace," which reported that undisclosed cameras in Jugenburg's clinic captured patients as they undressed, underwent procedures, and moved through clinic hallways, often with only a limited or obscured notice that surveillance was taking place.
Two patients initially launched the lawsuit in 2019, alleging breach of privacy, negligence and misuse of their images; the case later expanded to cover all patients who attended the clinic during the period when the cameras were in use.
Regulators had previously sanctioned Jugenburg over related conduct, including a six-month suspension in 2021 for filming a surgical procedure and posting patient images online without proper consent, but the civil ruling goes further by imposing collective monetary compensation and a significant punitive award.
The judgment is one of the largest privacy-related awards involving a physician in Canada and is expected to influence how medical regulators, clinics, and courts handle non-consensual recording in clinical settings in the future, as per CTV News.
