Eagleson v Liddell

In assessing damages for loss of earnings, a trial judge may combine occupational evidence with the claimant’s employment history, personal circumstances, credibility and likely willingness to work. Uncertainty may be reflected through adjustments to earnings, weeks worked or a lump-sum deduction. An appellate court should not substitute its own calculations where the trial judge adopted a permissible evaluative approach supported by the evidence. A multiplier extending to normal retirement age may be justified by occupational evidence and claimant-specific findings, even where a shorter working life is statistically arguable.

The claimant suffered serious injuries in a road accident and brought a claim for damages for personal injuries. Liability was admitted. On 18 June 1999, Mr David Mackie QC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge in the Queen’s Bench Division, awarded damages and interest totalling £188,902.81.

The defendant appealed principally against the assessment of past and future loss of earnings, challenging both the assumed earnings and the multiplier used for future loss. A subsidiary challenge to certain items of special damage was abandoned. The central issues were whether the judge had properly evaluated the claimant’s employment prospects and whether the assessment disclosed any basis for appellate intervention.

1. Appeal dismissed. The subsidiary ground concerning late evidence and certain items of special damage was abandoned.
2. For past loss of earnings, the judge was entitled to assess the likely earnings that would have been received by considering the nature of steel-erecting work, occupational evidence, the claimant’s employment record, the recession, his family circumstances and the effect of his step-grandson’s illness. The judge had seen and heard the claimant, his wife and a fellow steel erector, and was entitled to accept their evidence and make an allowance for possible gaps in employment.
3. For future loss, the judge was entitled to use evidence of the typical number of weeks worked by steel erectors at different ages, rather than applying an undifferentiated average. He was also entitled to take a multiplier extending to age 65, having regard to the general evidence that steel erectors could work to that age and to his findings about the claimant’s character and determination to work. The argument for a multiplier of eight instead of eleven did not establish error.
4. The £20,000 deduction from the calculated future loss involved no precise arithmetical formula, but the appellate court had not heard the evidence or made the primary findings of fact. The overall assessment was open to the judge, and there was no proper basis for interference. The award of £8,000 per annum net and multiplier of nine for the claimant’s future earnings after returning to work was not challenged.

Appeal dismissed with costs, including the costs incurred in mediation, subject to detailed assessment if not agreed.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): In [2001] EWCA Civ 155, the appeal was dismissed with costs.
• High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division: On 18 June 1999, Mr David Mackie QC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, awarded damages and interest of £188,902.81 after liability had been admitted.