Lai Wai Keong Eugene v Loo Wei Yen
Jurisdiction | Singapore |
Judge | Vinodh Coomaraswamy J |
Judgment Date | 28 June 2013 |
Neutral Citation | [2013] SGHC 123 |
Court | High Court (Singapore) |
Hearing Date | 06 August 2012,06 December 2012 |
Docket Number | Suit No 727 of 2009 (Registrar’s Appeal No 273 of 2012) |
Plaintiff Counsel | Anthony Wee and Pak Waltan (United Legal Alliance LLC) |
Defendant Counsel | Toh Kok Seng and Desmond Tan (Lee & Lee) |
Subject Matter | Damages,Assessment |
Published date | 05 July 2013 |
The plaintiff, Lai Wai Keong Eugene, suffered catastrophic and life-changing injuries on 12 April 2007 in a collision between his motorcycle and a car driven by the defendant.1 As a result of the collision, the plaintiff is now a paraplegic with no sensation or motor control from his upper chest downwards.2 He sustained a complete spinal cord injury at T4/T5 level, multiple fractures of his thoracic spine, fractures of bilateral ribs, bilateral pneumothoraxes and a left haemothorax.3 He had a difficult post-operative recovery, which was complicated by pneumonia and by pressure sores at the sacral area.4 He continues to suffer multiple disabilities arising from paraplegia. These include incontinence, frequent skin breakdown sometimes requiring surgical intervention, multiple episodes of urinary tract infection, permanent loss of sexual function, recurring bouts of muscle spasms and low blood pressure.5
The plaintiff commenced an action against the defendant on 25 August 2009 seeking damages for negligence. The defendant consented to interlocutory judgment with damages to be assessed, accepting 90% liability for the plaintiff’s injuries.
In due course, the Assistant Registrar (“AR”) assessed the damages totalling $2,073,432.42. That sum comprised the following heads:6
The plaintiff appealed against the AR’s award on only two of these heads: loss of future earnings (“LFE”) and future medical expenses. The appeal came before me. I dismissed the appeal. The plaintiff has appealed to the Court of Appeal. I now give my reasons.
The proceedings belowAs before me, the central dispute at the assessment of damages before the AR focused on the plaintiff’s claims for LFE and for future medical expenses.
Submissions for the plaintiffPlaintiff's counsel, Mr Anthony Wee, submitted to the AR that in assessing LFE:
. . . although everyone thinks that the conventional approach is
the only way in which loss of future earnings should be assessed,this misconception is nothing more than a myth and is further away from the truth than most people think. The Court is really only bound by one, and only one, principle – the simple concept ofrestitutio in integrum. The way in which this goal is reached is unfettered. The Plaintiff is therefore asking Your Honour to depart from adopting the conventional approach”.7[Emphasis original]
In order to achieve
Applying the approach which he advocated, Mr Wee invited the AR to award the plaintiff $1,823,034.60 for LFE.17 Alternatively, if the AR preferred the conventional approach, Mr Wee submitted that the appropriate multiplier should be 21 years with a varying multiplicand to reflect the plaintiff’s promotions over his remaining working life, yielding an award for LFE of $1,814,574.45.18 Underlying both figures was the assumption that, but for his injuries, the plaintiff would have continued earning an income until age 65.19
Mr Wee also sought an award of $858,00020 for the plaintiff’s future medical expenses. Mr Wee accepted the use of the conventional approach for assessing future medical expenses because he had not adduced present value evidence for this head of loss.21 The plaintiff’s claim for future medical expenses comprised 3 elements. For 2 of the 3 elements, Mr Wee applied a multiplier of 22 years.22 He derived that multiplier by discounting the plaintiff’s remaining 30 years of life by 25%.23 For the third element, Mr Wee applied the same discount of 25%, but this time directly to the future expense as a lump sum rather than to a multiplier.24
The AR’s decisionThe AR declined to depart from the conventional approach in assessing LFE, holding as follows at [16] of his grounds of decision:
“I agree with the plaintiff that the principle of [
restitutio ]in integrum underlies the assessment of damages for personal injuries and death. But with respect, I cannot agree that the approach adopted by the court to achieve [restitutio ]in integrum is “unfettered”. It is clear fromTay Cheng Yan , a case which the plaintiff had himself relied upon, that the Court of Appeal, while agreeing that there is nothing wrong in law or in principle with the use of actuarial tables, . . . made a policy decision to prefer the use of the direct application method, ie, the conventional approach taking into account the “interests of uniformity and clarity of legal practice in Singapore” and the “comprehensive familiarity of our courts and practitioners” with the conventional approach. I therefore find that there is no reason for the court not to adopt the conventional approach in assessing the loss of future income of the plaintiff in this case.”
The AR therefore disregarded Mr Foong’s present value tables.25 He applied the conventional approach. He selected a multiplier of 13.26 He did so by having regard to comparable cases, to the plaintiff’s age (39 years at the date of assessment) and to the statutory minimum retirement age (62 years stipulated by s 4(1) of the Retirement and Re-employment Act (Cap 274A, 2000 Rev Ed)).27 This multiplier, of course, does not represent actual years but notional discounted years. To avoid confusion, I will therefore refer to the components of this multiplier as multiplier units rather than years.
The AR accepted Mr Wee’s submission that the multiplier should be split, holding that that approach was consistent with existing case law28 and, in any event, not disputed by the defendant.29 The AR therefore split the multiplier into three segments – representing three periods of the plaintiff’s working life – and applied an increased multiplicand to each segment to reflect what he found to be the plaintiff’s promotion and salary increment prospects.
In arriving at the multiplicand, the AR first accepted the plaintiff’s submission that, based on case law, the deduction for income tax should be 2.5%.30 He then accepted the defendant’s submission that the plaintiff would, despite his injuries, be capable of earning some income in future through sedentary work. The AR found that that net income would be $600 per month31 and further found that the plaintiff would be capable earning that net income on and after the 6th multiplier unit.32
The AR then considered the plaintiff’s prospects of promotion. He found that the plaintiff was likely to have remained a SLE for 2 multiplier units, then promoted to AM for a further 8 multiplier units and further promoted to Manager for the final 3 multiplier units. He therefore arrived at a total award for LFE of $880,262.93.33 Although he did not tabulate it in this manner, this is how he arrived at that figure:
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Lai Wai Keong Eugene v Loo Wei Yen
...Wai Keong Eugene Plaintiff and Loo Wei Yen Defendant [2013] SGHC 123 Vinodh Coomaraswamy J Suit No 727 of 2009 (Registrar's Appeal No 273 of 2012) High Court Damages—Assessment—Assessment of damages for loss of future earnings—Whether departure warranted from conventional approach of assess......