No Duty of Care: The Sean Hartman Ruling and another Betrayal of Canada's Judiciary

A 17-year-old boy is dead. His father wants answers. The courts said no. And with it, they confirmed the most dangerous precedent of the COVID era: that no one is responsible.

On March 25, 2025, Ontario Superior Court Justice Sandra Antoniani delivered yet another devastating blow to Canadians seeking truth and accountability. Her decision to dismiss a case brought by Dan Hartman—the father of 17-year-old Sean Hartman, who died 33 days after receiving a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine—was grounded in a single phrase that should send chills down the spine of every citizen: “There is no private law duty of care made out.”

This statement isn’t just a legal technicality—it is a moral and judicial abdication. It sends a clear message: the institutions that compelled Canadians to take part in an experimental pharmaceutical rollout owe no duty of care to the very people they swore to protect. The decision doesn’t just close the door on Dan Hartman’s quest for justice for his son—it rips the hinges off.

Sean Hartman is not just a tragedy. He is a case study in what happens when every mechanism meant to protect the individual—from Parliament, to public health regulators, to the courts—chooses instead to protect itself.

Who Was Sean Hartman?

Sean Hartman was a healthy 17-year-old hockey player from Beeton, Ontario. On August 25, 2021, he received his first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. He did so under duress—not from a gun to his head, but something almost worse: the slow social suffocation of mandates that tied his passion for hockey to an injection he didn't want.

Four days after the shot, Sean developed strange symptoms—facial rashes, eye discoloration, and shoulder pain. He was brought to the ER. He was sent home. On September 27, 2021, his mother found him dead on the floor of his bedroom.

The autopsy was inconclusive—"unascertained" was the official term—with a noted enlarged heart that was dismissed as "typical" for athletes, even though Sean had not been training and was mostly sedentary due to pandemic lockdowns. Later, American pathologist Dr. Ryan Cole found spike proteins—produced by the vaccine—in Sean’s adrenal glands. Cole concluded this could have contributed to a sudden drop in blood pressure, leading to collapse and possibly death.