HAMILTON, Ont. - A resident in a Hamilton retirement home faces a manslaughter charge for allegedly breaking another resident's hip in a fight -- an injury police say led the man to catch a deadly virus in hospital.

Police have charged Stephen White, 50, in connection with a fight that caused Carl Hammond, 62, to fracture his hip on Aug. 12. The fight took place at the Emerald Lodge residential care facility, where both men lived.

Hammond developed complications after surgery and died of pneumonia on Oct. 27.

After consulting medical experts, including a forensic pathologist and the regional coroner, police determined the fracture to Hammond's hip was "a significant contributing factor" in the chain of events that led to his death, Hamilton police Det. Angela Abrams said Wednesday.

These kinds of circumstances aren't unusual in manslaughter cases, says Paul Burstein, president of the national Criminal Lawyers' Association. From a legal standpoint, the injury "need not be the cause, but only a contributing cause" of death, he said.

He predicts the Crown will argue "that any assault on a senior, especially one fragile enough to live in a retirement home, is potentially life-threatening."

Still, even if White is convicted of manslaughter, it's unlikely he'll face jail time, Burstein said. Sentencing judges tend to be more lenient when the link between the assault and the death is indirect, he said.

But the lawyer questions whether pursuing the charge is in the public's interest.

"Realistically, is the fact that they're prosecuting this other individual for manslaughter going to deter other like-minded residents of a seniors' home from engaging in a risky assault?" he said. "Hardly."

He added: "I suppose I might come down on the side of being more parsimonious with our resources and asking ourselves, isn't there another more efficient and effective way to sort of achieve the same result?"

Bernard Dickens, a medical law expert and professor at the University of Toronto, says prosecutors on these cases often push for more severe charges, hoping the accused will instead plead guilty to aggravated assault.

That way, the accused ends up with a reasonable sentence, he said.

White was known to police on unrelated matters, said Abrams, the Hamilton police detective. White was scheduled to appear in court for a bail hearing Wednesday.