SINGH v ILICH [1995] NSWCA 432

SINGH v ILICH

SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL PRIESTLEY and COLE JJA

30 March 1995, 30 March 1995

[1995] NSWCA 432

Damages — no question of principle.

Cole JA This is an appeal from a decision of his Honour Twigg J delivered on 17 October 1994 in which his Honour entered a verdict for the plaintiff in the sum of $125,838. The ingredients within that claim included a sum for past economic loss, for future loss of earning capacity, and for non-economic damages. The appellant has challenged his Honour's findings in relation to those three elements.

The plaintiff was injured on eighteen February 1990. At that time she was aged approximately thirty-five years. She had been a hairdresser for approximately twenty years, but had ceased work some three weeks before the birth of her first child on 27 May 1988. She had not worked for eighteen months after the birth of that child. A week before the accident she had agreed with a former employer that she would resume work for him. The arrangement was that she would work for him on his busy days at the hairdressing salon, namely, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Whilst the question of whether such an arrangement was made was in issue at the trial, his Honour accepted that such an arrangement had been made. His Honour was also satisfied that the work for those three days was available to her and that had she worked for those three days she would have earned net a figure of $235 per week.

In the accident the appellant suffered soft tissue injuries to her neck and shoulder which produced stress and headaches. There was a medical conflict as to the duration of the sequelae of the accident, but the trial judge preferred the evidence of the plaintiff and her medical witnesses to the effect that after the accident she could work only one day per week. That day, as it turned out, being Saturday. It was submitted in this appeal that his Honour had not given sufficient weight to the evidence of Drs Ganora, Pillemer and Conrad, but in my view there is no basis for any contention that his Honour did not have proper regard to the medical evidence before him. In any event, the last of those doctors to whom I have referred concluded his views by saying, "I do not believe that she can do more than about five to ten hours hairdressing per week."