FLETCHER v LAMOND [1992] NSWCA 69

FLETCHER v LAMOND SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL

MAHONEY, PRIESTLEY and SHELLER JJA 31 March 1992, 31 March 1992 [1992] NSWCA 69

APPEAL from District Court — Motor vehicle accident — Whether damages excessive — No issue of principle — Judgment amended by Court; otherwise appeal dismissed.

Mahoney JA The plaintiff in this proceeding was injured in a motor vehicle accident on 24 September 1982. She was then twenty years of age.

On 14 March 1991 Acting Judge Dent gave judgment for her in the claim against the defendant, in a case where liability was admitted, in the sum of $340,810.65. An appeal has been brought against that judgment on the ground that certain aspects of the award are excessive.

The facts are not significantly in dispute. They were set out in the learned judge's judgment as follows:

"The motor cycle struck another motor vehicle and the plaintiff was propelled from this impact, and recalls thereafter being in the gutter in excruciating pain, with her right leg bent. She was taken by ambulance to the St George Hospital. Her injury of significance was a fracture of both bones of her right leg and dislocation in the ankle joint itself. This was treated by a closed reduction procedure and plaster fixation. Hospitalisation extended for five days, and the plaintiff was discharged home on crutches.

The plaintiff was twenty at the time. The injury to the leg was a complex one, and I quote from the report of the plaintiff's treating orthopaedist, Dr JK Ellis, of 8 November 1982: "The x-rays taken at the time and since show that she had quite a nasty injury. The talus was moved laterally in the ankle mortice about 1 cm; this means that both the medial ligament of the ankle and the thick fibrous ligament of the inferior tibio-fibular joint have been ruptured. The fibula itself has been displaced slightly upwards and laterally.'"