NSW Caselaw
NEW SOUTH WALES INSURANCE MINISTERIAL CORPORATION v SPRENGNAGEL
SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL
MAHONEY and PRIESTLEY JJA 28 March 1995, 28 March 1995
[1995] NSWCA 315
PERSONAL INJURIES — DAMAGES — PAST AND FUTURE ECONOMIC LOSS.
PERSONAL INJURIES — DAMAGES — PAST AND FUTURE ECONOMIC LOSS — plaintiff injured in car accident — trial judge awarded damages under various heads, which included past and future economic loss. In assessing past and future economic loss the judge took into account various factors for estimating what the position of the plaintiff might have been had she remained uninjured — defendant/respondent submitted that those findings should have led to a significantly smaller figure for both past and future economic loss. Held: per Priestley JA, the overall result in regard to economic loss cannot be said to be either unreasonable or inconsistent with the factual materials before his Honour; per Mahoney JA, the issue of economic capacity is essentially one of judgment and estimate and not amenable to greater certainty.
Mahoney JA I will ask Priestley JA to give the first judgment.
Priestley JA This is a defendant's appeal against the amount of damages awarded to the plaintiff by his Honour Judge Cooper in the District Court. The plaintiff's claim arose from a car accident for which the defendant admitted liability.
The accident was on 6 September 1986. The plaintiff was then aged twenty. Judgment was given on 25 June 1993. The judge assessed the damages at $219,917, made up of economic loss from the date of the accident to the date of judgment, $43,714; interest on that amount, $17,090; general damages, $40,000; out-of-pockets for the past and the future, $16,113; and future economic loss, $ 103,000, in round figures.
In the appeal the defendant accepted the trial judge's basic findings but submitted that those findings should have led to a significantly smaller figure for both past and future economic loss.
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