TURNER V. REIBEL

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

DURE eeeeeeceneeeesctneeeenernen _ Vz _ RETIRED

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

Judgment delivered at_Sydney — on_Tuesdayy..16th August 1960

W. M, Host, Gort. Print, Mab,

TURNER

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:

ORDER

Appeal dismissed with costs.

JUDGMENT

TURNER v.

REIBEL

DIXON C.J. MENZIES J.

WINDEYER J.

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The appellant, who was plaintiff in an action heard by Mansfield C.J. in which £7,348.18s.6d. damages were awarded, has appealed to this Court on the ground that these damages are inadequate.

The appellant was injured in a motor car collision on 21st September 1955. The action was tried in December 1959. In respect of loss of wages for the intervening period, the learned Chief Justice allowed a sum of £3,188.1s.6d. calculated by discounting £3,363-11s.8d., the sum which the appellant would have earned had he worked during this period without any break, by ten per cent. to allow for ordinary contingencies that might have interfered with his continuous employment. This £3,188.1s.6d., together with some admitted items of loss, totalled £3,348.18s.6d., at which special damages were assessed. General damages were assessed at £4,000, and it is this amount that the appellant complains is too little.

The appellant has, since the accident, been in a bad state both physically and mentally, and is still totally unemployable. Had the general damages to be regarded as compensation for all the ills from which he now suffers, it would be plainly inadequate. The difficulty about the case, however - and it is one that was present in the mind of the learned Chief Justice - is that the appellant was far from a normal, healthy man when the accident materially added to his misfortunes, and the problem is to determine how much worse off he is by reason of the injuries that he received in the collision.

The appellant was born on 15th January 1911. In 1941, when he was an electrical mechanic in the Royal Australian Air