HALL v SLOANE [1994] NSWCA 120

HALL v SLOANE SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL

PRIESTLEY, MEAGHER and HANDLEY JJA 14 October 1994, 14 October 1994

[1994] NSWCA 120 FACTS:

The appellant challenged assessment of disability in an award of damages.

HELD:

(1) His Honour's findings can only be explained on the basis that there was a limited acceptance of her evidence and being credibility based cannot be disturbed.

ORDERS:

(1) Appeal dismissed with costs.

Priestley JA I will ask Meagher JA to deliver the judgment.

Meagher JA Mrs Sloan who was born on 18 August 1970 was involved in a tor vehicle accident on 17 March 1989.

First, she sued by arbitration where she was apparently disbelieved and it came to nothing. She appealed to his Honour Judge McLachlan in the District Court who found for her and awarded her a verdict of $21,017.

The negligent driver involved in the accident has appealed.

The facts which I were found by his Honour are as follows: The accident was apparently of some severity, that it caused pain in the lower back and in the knees and that that pain was still existing at the time of the hearing.

This story is to some extent corroborated by the account she gave to her initial GP and supported by the hospital records. Her complaints are also supported by a neurological expert, Doctor Frith whose diagnosis I think was accepted by his Honour but not the prognosis.

In these circumstances I take it his Honour concluded that the plaintiff was virtually unemployable in any active occupation requiring bending, lifting or carrying or serving behind a counter but this was by no means a permanent condition.

Such a finding must involve a finding that she has lost a large proportion of a possibility open to her. At all events his Honour found the accident and her impairment was 18 per cent of the most extreme case.