About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

17 Managerial L. 1 (1974)

handle is hein.journals/ijlm17 and id is 1 raw text is: SMITH v. MANCHESTER CORPORATION Court of Appeal : 10 June 1974 SMITH v. MANCHESTER CORPORATION Edmund Davies L.J., Stamp L.J. and Scarman L.J. Damages - Loss of future earnings - Assessment of - Domestic worker injured in fall at work - Injury to shoulder and right arm resulting in partial permanent disability - No immediate loss of earnings - Employers' undertaking to retain in employment - Risk of future unemployment - Factors to be taken into account in assessing damages. In May, 1971, the plaintiff, a woman of 49, while carrying a tray in the course of her employment as a part-time domestic worker in an old people's home, slipped on some substance deposited on the floor and fell, sustaining injuries to her right elbow. As a result of prolonged strapping up she developed a frozen shoulder and movement of her right arm was permanently impaired so that she was under a disability in her day to day tasks and her normal social activities. She was off work for 14 months but then returned to light work with her pre-accident employers, at her pre-accident pay, £16.50 a week. She brought an action for damages against her employers alleging that her accident was due to their negligence. The employers admitted liability but denied that the plaintiff had suffered the damage alleged. At the trial they gave an undertaking through their counsel that they would keep the plaintiff in their employment as long as they could properly do so. The trial judge accepted the medical evidence that the plaintiff was considerably disabled, and awarded her £2,300 general damages, £2,000 for pain and suffering, physical handicap, interference with amenities, etc. and £300 for loss of future earnings. On appeal by the plaintiff, on the ground that the awards under both heads were too low, Held, allowing the appeal, that the £2,000 was not so low as to justify the court in interfering, but that the sum awarded for loss of future earnings was too low because, in the event of the plaintiff's present employers (despite their undertaking) not being able to retain her in their employ, her position in the competitive labour market would be considerably weakened as the result of her disability; that although there was no clearly foreseeable loss, there was an existing and permanent reduction in her earning capacity for which she must be genuinely compensated and accordingly the £300 would be increased to £1,000. Per Edmund Davies L.J. Now that general damages for pain and suffering is required to be assessed separately from damages for future financial loss the two awards must be considered separately and if the award under one head is clearly wrong it should be interfered with, even though ultimately there may be no very substantial variation in the global award. Decision of Kilner-Brown J. varied. 1

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most