Turning then to the first head commonly called loss of future earnings - a common method of estimating the loss of prospective earnings is to take the annual earnings at the date of the accident and multiply this by the number of prospective working years lost. Then it is said "the resulting amount must then be scaled down by reason of two considerations, first that a lump sum is being given instead of the various sums over the years, and second that contingencies might have arisen to cut off the earnings before the period of disability would otherwise have come to its end": Mayne & McGregor, Damages (1961) p. 767. The first of the two considerations mentioned does, of course, in every case demand that the product of the initial multiplication must be discounted at some assumed rate of interest to ascertain the present value of the notional future earnings. Nothing here turns upon the individual. This "scaling down" is a mere process of arithmetic applicable to all cases; and there are tables from which the result is readily ascertainable. But the second consideration is altogether different. It is a mistake to suppose that it necessarily involves a "scaling down". What it involves depends, not on arithmetic, but on considering what the future might have held for the particular individual concerned. He might have fallen sick from time to time, been away from work and unpaid. He might have become unemployed and unable to get work. He might have been injured in circumstances in which he would receive no compensation from any source. He might have met an untimely death. Allowance must be made for these "contingencies", or the "vicissitudes of life" as they are glibly called. But this ought not to be done by ignoring the individual case and making some arbitrary subtraction. We were told that in South Australia it is a common practice to subtract twenty-five per cent "for contingencies". Indeed counsel for the appellant, in the calculations he made in support of his claim for higher damages, conceded that this should be done. But he did not explain why. I know of no reason for assuming that everyone who is injured and rendered for a period unable to work would probably in any event have been for a quarter of that period out of work, or away from work and unpaid. No statistics were presented to justify this assumption. Moreover, the generalization, that there must be a "scaling down" for contingencies, seems mistaken. All "contingencies" are not adverse: all "vicissitudes" are not harmful. A particular plaintiff might have had prospects or chances of advancement and increasingly remunerative employment. Why count the possible buffets and ignore the rewards of fortune? Each case depends upon its own facts. In some it may seem that the chance of good fortune might have balanced or even outweighed the risk of bad. With these considerations in mind I turn to the element of loss of future earnings in this case and to what the learned trial judge said on this aspect. The injured woman was forty-four years old at the date of trial. The average expectation of life of a woman of forty-four was stated by the Public Actuary of South Australia to be 32.34 years. The net wages that she was earning immediately before the accident were about £11 10s. 0d. per week. If it be assumed that but for the accident she would have or could have worked to the age of sixty, then, according to the actuary's method of calculation, the capital value of the loss of those earnings (reckoned at five per cent on an annuity basis) was at the date of trial £6,450. His Honour referred to this figure. But he said that it must be reduced. He does not say, however, by how much he reduced it in whatever computations he made in arriving at his assessment of damages. He simply said: "Many possibilities of everyday life had to be reckoned with. The wife's employment might have been terminated without any opportunity to be re-employed, her wages might have been reduced, she might have voluntarily ceased to do other than housework at home, some other mishap or misfortune might have supervened terminating her life or capacity to earn". With respect, I think these remarks suggest that his Honour may at this point have been giving undue weight to factors that might reduce the measurement of the plaintiff's economic loss, and no weight to those that might increase it. True it is that the plaintiff's wages, had she continued in employment, might have gone down in the years ahead. But I think it is at least as probable that they might have gone up. True it is that she might have voluntarily ceased to go to work and devoted herself to household duties. But this seems immaterial, for, although it is common to speak of "loss of earnings", the loss in a case such as this is really the destruction of the capacity to earn. The sum that might have been earned is the measure of that loss. I referred to this in Paff v. Speed [1] . It is true too that, as his Honour said, if this accident had not happened some other mishap or illness might have curtailed the plaintiff's life or diminished her capacity to earn. But the consequences of this possibility can be pushed too far in the case of a person whose expectation of life based on the average of the life tables was what hers was. It is just as possible that she might have lived to the expected age and have had an undiminished capacity for work after the age of sixty. She was before the accident a healthy woman. It seems to me that, everything considered, the chances of the future could not be so clearly foreseen that they demanded any great reduction of the figure for loss of future earnings calculated by the conventional method. A question of importance could arise at this point. That is whether this Court should follow all the reasoning of the Court of Appeal in Oliver v. Ashman [2] and Wise v. Kaye [3] . But, as it chances, it is not necessary to consider that in this case; for it is not necessary to assume that the plaintiff will not live for sixteen years which would bring her to the age of sixty the period taken for the calculation of the loss of wages. She has been most grievously injured. She is learning to adjust herself to the conditions of life as an invalid in a wheelchair. And the medical evidence, although necessarily inconclusive, suggests that with care and attention she might live for perhaps twenty years, and that at least ten years is probable. I am prepared to assume therefore, for the purpose of this part of the estimation of the damages she has suffered that a potential capacity to earn for sixteen years was tortiously destroyed. And taking all circumstances into consideration that should, I think, be assessed at not less than £6,000.