GREEN V. BRUYN

©1978 /58

ORIGINAL =

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Ve ee =):.') 4: _ a ICINAL —GRIGIS REASONS FOR JUDGMENT Judgment delivered at..Sydney.

W. M. Houston, Govt. Print., Melb. : on. Friday, 9th May..1958

en ti RRS

io Is es eal

Appeal dismissed with costs.

GREEN ve

BRUYN

FULLAGAR J. TAYLOR J.

GREEN ve

BRUYN

John William Green the defendant having died since the institution of the appeal and his executor and executrix George Thomas Green and Minnie Stella Green by their counsel consenting to be substituted as appellants there will be an order that they be substituted as the appellants and that the appeal be treated as carried on by then.

We proceed to deal with the appeal.

The defendant respondent on 2nd November 1949 suffered serious personal injuries while riding a motor cycle in Canberra. Almost six years afterwards he commenced an action against the defendant in the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory for the recovery of damages

in respect of the injuries alleging that they were sustained through the defendant's negligence. The action was tried on ist and 2nd August 1957 before Simpson J. without a jury. Judgment was given for the plaintiff in the sum of £11,421.9.0 with costs. The defendant appealed to this Court against the judgment but not on the issue of liability. That was not further contested. His appeal was restricted to the assessment of damages which was challenged as excessive and as based on an erroneous mode of computation and estimation.

We agree in the view that the mode of computation and estimation is open to criticism but we do not think that the amount awarded is excessive.

The defendant's main injury was a badly crushed pelvis. The pelvic girdle was fractured and there was a gross displacement of the fragments. The femur was not fractured but the fracture of the pelvis went right through the acetabulum or upper bearing surface of the hip joint.