STARTARI V. LAIO

bee a wy al 1 - v ~~ GRIGINAE ORIG ; IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

_STARTART

Vv,

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

ie Judgment delivered at... Sydney. W. M. Housrox, Govt. Print., Melb, on... Thursday, 24th November ,1960..

curs/38,

QRDER

Appeal allowed with costs. Judgment of the Supreme Court of South Australia varied by substituting the sum of £8,204. 12s. 6d. for the sum of £5,204. 12s. 6d. wherever appearing therein.

STARTARI ve o

JUDGMENT McTIERNAN J. ITTO Je

WINDEYER Je

STARTARI v. LATO

This is an appeal from a judgment of Brazel Je

by which he awarded the plaintiff, an infant who sued by her next friend, the sum of £5,204. 12. 6 as damages for injuries she suffered when the defendant's motor car collided with her when she was riding a push bicycle on Grange Road, Seaton. His Honour's finding that the plaintiff's injuries resulted solely from the defendant's negligence is not disputed, the appellant's only complaint being that the damages are inadequate. The sum awarded is made up of £204. 12. 6, agreed as special damages, and £5,000 assessed by the learned judge as general damages. The question for us is whether this sum is, in the circumstances, so clearly an erroneous estimate that this Court should, in accordance with the principles on which it acts when a judge's assessment is challenged, set it aside. The facts which are of an unusual character raise what seems to us to be a

. somewhat special problem. They may be briefly stated. The appellant at the time of the accident was just on twelve years old. She was born in Italy. Her parents are Italian migrants who are unable to speak English. They gave evidence by an interpreter, who said that they speak a mixture of a Calabrian dialect of Italian "and some Italo~Australian garbled in rather bad grammar all round". They are both illiterate; and the mother's mental capacity is apparently far from great. That was the impression she created on Mr. Dinning, a well-known neuro-surgeon who attended the appellant and who sought through an interpreter to discuss her condition with her mother. He said of the mother that she was quite uneducated and "I think she is pretty low mentally". The appellant herself had come to Australia with