When a man and a woman of a certain age have unprotected sex, there is always the possibility a baby will be made.

Such are the facts of life with which, one would assume, a doctor is familiar.

And yet a 42-year-old Toronto physician recently tried to sue a woman with whom he’d had a casual sexual relationship for more than $4 million in damages, claiming “non-pathological emotional harm of an unplanned parenthood.”

The man, identified only as PP in a court ruling, alleged in a statement of claim that the woman, known as DD, told him she was taking birth control, and so the two proceeded to have sex on several occasions without a condom when they were seeing each other in 2014.

But then DD got pregnant, and PP wasn’t pleased, so he sued her.

Superior Court Justice Paul Perell threw out PP’s statement of claim last week, without permitting him the opportunity to amend it, finding there was no legal basis for his lawsuit.

“The case is certainly precedent-setting because no one has ever tried to do this before,” said DD’s lawyer, Morris Cooper, who characterized PP’s argument as “really a claim for wrongful pregnancy and birth.”

DD, a 37-year-old medical practitioner who is now the mother of a healthy 10-month-old child, is pleased with the decision, her lawyer said.

PP’s lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.

The facts in the case are “salacious,” Perell said, so salacious that the judge decided on his own initiative to hide the identities of both parties and seal the court file for fear the child might one day find the ruling and realize he or she was the focus of it.

Perell wrote that PP was not seeking to avoid child support obligations, as he is already making payments.

“To use the language of the statement of claim, PP was emotionally harmed because he was deprived of the choice of falling in love, marrying, enjoying married life and, when he and his wife thought ‘the time was right,’ having a baby,” the judge wrote in his 18-page ruling.

PP and DD had a number of sexual encounters — each date is described in the statement of claim, including whether or not there was intercourse — after meeting through a mutual friend in May 2014.

“PP believed that DD was being truthful when she stated that she was ‘on the pill’ and believed that she truthfully implied that she did not want the act of sexual intercourse with PP to lead to conception,” reads part of the statement of claim quoted in Perell’s judgment.

By July, the two broke off their sexual relationship, but maintained a non-sexual friendship.

But then came the text message at 7:06 p.m. on Aug. 10, 2014, that would shock PP and change his life forever.

DD said she was 10 weeks pregnant with PP’s baby, according to the statement of claim.

PP wanted her to get an abortion.

DD said no.

PP said, “I don’t want to have a baby with some random girl.”

DD said, “This random girl is fine doing it on her own.”

The father-to-be alleged that he had been misled into believing that DD was on birth control and taking it as prescribed, or, as his statement of claim says in thick legalese:

“DD committed an independently actionable wrong through misconduct that represents a marked departure from ordinary standards of decent behaviour. Her conduct was sufficiently malicious, high-handed and highly reprehensible such that it offends the court’s sense of decency.”

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He therefore said he should be entitled to punitive damages “to achieve the objectives of punishment, deterrence and denunciation.”

As is common, the judge indicated at the end of his ruling that parties could make submissions on costs.

But in an interesting move, according to Cooper, DD’s lawyer, the judge offered his view that there should be no order for costs, namely “to not make this sad story worse for the child whose birth has become a source of emotional grief.”