KANG v GOVERNMENT INSURANCE OFFICE OF NEW SOUTH WALES [1991] NSWCA 164

KANG v GOVERNMENT INSURANCE OFFICE OF NEW SOUTH WALES

SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES — COURT OF APPEAL

CLARKE JA, MEAGHER JA and HANDLEY JA 15 November 1991 [1991] NSWCA 164

Facts: Appellant schoolteacher injured in 1985 motor vehicle accident. Appeal on general damages and future earning capacity.

Held (per curiam): The exiquity of the figure of general damages betokens mistake and should be increased.

(per Clarke and Handley JJA, Meagher JA dissenting): The amount awarded for future economic loss is so far out of accord with what should have been awarded that the Court must interfere and increase it.

Doherty v Liverpool District Hospital (1991) 22 NSWLR 284

Griffiths v Kerkemeyer (1977) 139 CLR 161

Burnicle v Cutelli (1982) 2 NSWLR 26

Meagher JA. The plaintiff appellant, a schoolteacher, was born in 1940 and was injured in a motor vehicle accident in September 1985. The respondent is the defendant in the plaintiff's action which was heard by Associate Judge Kramer-Roberts and proceeded on the question of quantum only. On that question the defendant sought to lead no evidence and scarcely if at all challenged the evidence of the plaintiff. The result and verdict which his Honour arrived at was a figure of $77,606.76, which is a sum made up of the following components — loss of future earning capacity $20,000, general damages $35,000, loss of past earnings $9,030.80, interest on loss of past earnings $1,692.75, out-of-pocket expenses $11,883.93.

The facts may be described as follows — the injuries which the plaintiff suffered were injuries to the left shoulder, neck muscles and left hip. The plaintiff took analgesics and sleeping tablets. There was no fracture but nevertheless theinjuries were serious. The injuries necessitated her having a double fusion, a discogram, two cortisone injections and an operation called a 'nerve block'. Even after the operation she has been in deep pain and there is no sign that that deep pain will subside.