Commissioner for Government Tram & Omnibus Services v Vickery

High Court of Australia|1952-07-01|Before: Kitto JJ

High Court of Australia Dixon C.J. McTiernan, Williams, Webb, Fullagar and Kitto JJ. Commissioner for Government Tram & Omnibus Services v Vickery [1952] HCA 44

The Court delivered the following written judgment: -

Aug. 15 Dixon C.J., McTiernan, Williams, Webb, Fullagar and Kitto JJ.

The plaintiff was travelling by a tram which was involved in a collision with a lorry. As a result of the collision he was struck by a heavy piece of glass which besides fracturing his jaw inflicted a large laceration of the left side of the face, from which, it may be assumed there was considerable bleeding. At the time of the accident the plaintiff was a man of fifty-one years of age employed as a drier hand at a wool scour, work at which he earned between £10 and £11 a week.

The accident occurred on 13th October 1949 and he returned to his work on 7th November 1949. But before he did so, according to the evidence of his wife and himself, a marked impairment of his vision had been noticed and it grew worse. It was noticed a fortnight after the accident and on 3rd November 1949 he went to an optician. The optician told the plaintiff to see an opthalmologist, which, however, the plaintiff delayed doing. He continued in his employment until the end of March 1950. Then on 28th March 1950 for the first time he consulted an opthalmologist. An investigation ensued the conclusions from which in effect formed the foundations of the plaintiff's case. In the first place his acuity of vision was found to be so small that he could not see any of the letters on the card or screen; it was sufficient only for him to see a hand in front of his face and to count the fingers. For this conclusion reliance was necessarily placed upon his statements as to what he could see. In the second place as a result of an investigation of the eye itself and of other physical conditions and possible conditions and of the history of the case, it was considered that his loss of vision was to be accounted for by an atrophy of the optic nerve following retinal ischaemia. In the third place the optic atrophy was put down to the haemorrhage or exsanguination caused by the wound together with the shock and perhaps concussion occasioned by the accident, taking effect, it was thought, upon a man whose prior state of health was poor and who had habitually smoked to excess. This view of the cause of the optic atrophy was based on medical theory applied to the history of the case. It was supported by medical witnesses called for the plaintiff; but on the defendant's side opthalmologists were called who expressed a contrary opinion, an opinion that it was not due to ischaemia and that in any event there was no evidence of sufficient loss of blood to give rise to an ischaemia.

As to the extent of the plaintiff's loss of sight, the plaintiff said in evidence that there was just a little sight, he could see at a short distance things moving but not what they were, he was not totally blind, he could see counsel from the witness box, he could see him moving but could not see what he was like to recognize him. On 1st April 1951 the plaintiff applied for an invalid pension and it was granted on the footing that he could not distinguish three figures at a distance of three feet and was permanently incapacitated for work to an extent exceeding eighty-five per cent.

In the notice of motion to the Full Court of the Supreme Court the defendant took a ground affecting the cause of action but did not argue it. Both in the Supreme Court and upon the appeal to this Court the only attack made upon the verdict related to damages. It would be a natural expectation that a verdict for such an extremely large amount of damages for physical injuries would be attacked as an excessive assessment. In fact, the first ground given in the notice of motion to the Supreme Court was that the damages awarded by the jury were excessive. But at the hearing of the motion for a new trial, to the evident surprise of the judges, this ground was abandoned. The ground upon which it was sought to support the motion was confined to the discovery of fresh evidence affecting damages, a ground which their Honours considered was not made out. In this Court neither in the notice of appeal nor during the argument was the ground taken that the actual assessment of the jury was excessive and unreasonable. On the contrary, at the outset we were informed that the Full Court of the Supreme Court had been told by counsel for the defendant that if the plaintiff was a truthful witness and he did have the loss of sight he claimed the verdict though large was not beyond what a jury might reasonably give.

The argument submitted by the appellant's counsel to this Court did not depart from this position. In these circumstances the responsibility for so large a verdict being sustained must rest upon the party and not upon the Court, which, in the face of the attitude so explicitly adopted on the part of the appellant-defendant, could not enter upon a consideration of the question whether the verdict should be set aside on the ground that the damages found were excessive.

As to the contention that the verdict should be set aside on the ground that fresh evidence had been discovered we agree in the view of the Supreme Court that this ground is not made out.

Once an action has been fought out and a jury has found a verdict great caution must be exercised before the verdict is set aside and a new trial ordered on the ground that the defeated party has since found himself able to put further evidence before a new jury. In the present instance it is not the liability of the defeated party that is affected by the further evidence which it is sought to adduce, but the quantification of damages. That is an unusual feature, but not one that should make the court less cautious in acceding to the application. The rule governing applications for new trials, based on the discovery of fresh evidence affecting liability, has often been formulated. Many of the decided cases were referred to in Orr v. Holmes [1] in this Court and many of the phrases in which the rule has been expressed were mentioned in the judgments. Among them is the statement of Lord Penzance in Scott v. Scott [2] : - "It has never been the habit in Westminster Hall to grant new trials on the simple ground that the party could make the same case stronger by corroborating testimony (even though newly discovered) if another trial were allowed. And if it were otherwise, there are few cases that would not be tried a second time."

(1948) 76 C.L.R. 632. 2. (1863) 3 Sw. & Tr. 319, at pp. 322, 326 [164 E.R. 1298, at pp. 1299, 1300].

In Orr v. Holmes [1] in one of the judgments the effect of the cases is stated thus: "Variations of phraseology occur in later cases but however it is expressed the sense of the rule remains that the new evidence must have so high a probative value with reference to an issue essential to the cause of action or defence as the case may be that it cannot reasonably be supposed that had the evidence been adduced the issue would not have been found for the party seeking the new trial."

In the case of an assessment of damages this language is not directly appropriate. But the rule cannot be less strict. The effect of the evidence newly discovered upon the assessment of damages must appear to the Court to be such that it cannot reasonably be supposed that, had it been adduced at the trial, the damages would not have been fixed at an amount substantially more favourable to the party seeking the new trial.

In the present case the defendant claims that evidence has been discovered which puts a different complexion upon the plaintiff's loss of vision, evidence which if given must have resulted in a much reduced assessment of damages.

Soon after the verdict the defendant was informed that the plaintiff had been employed in some capacity in the bar of an hotel. Inquiries made from the licensee of the hotel elicited some information of a not very full or precise kind. He was probably not very anxious to get mixed up in the matter. The brief result of the statements made by him and on his behalf in response to the inquiries is as follows. The plaintiff's wife had been employed at the hotel as a cook for an hour and three quarters a day for some months in the second part of 1951 and prior to a date in January 1952 or possibly until late in March 1952. During six weeks part of the same period the plaintiff had done some work at the same hotel, for which he received varying payments, the highest payment for one week being £5. The six weeks in which he did work for payment ended on 22nd November 1951. According to one version he was dismissed because he broke too many glasses: according to another a man was taken on by the licensee to do duties which covered the work he had been doing. It appears likely that he was given the task of picking up glasses in the bar rooms while his wife was engaged in the kitchen. At all events what is stated is consistent with this conjecture.

No direct evidence of the facts was laid before the Supreme Court. It all consisted of what the licensee or his advisers stated in answer to questions or inquiries. But two points were made. First it was said that, to be so employed, his vision must have been greater than he had led the jury to believe and greater than he had led the medical witnesses to believe when they formed their opinions. Secondly it was said that it showed that he had deceived the jury as to his inability to do any work and as to his having done no work after leaving his employment on 28th March 1951. Indeed that itself was a corrected date. He and his wife had given Christmas 1950 as the time when he left his employment, but that had been treated at the trial as an honest mistake. No specific question was asked either of the plaintiff or of his wife which brought their evidence into flat and direct contradiction with the facts stated in answer to the appellant's inquiries made since the trial. But the evidence given by the plaintiff and his wife about his leaving his employment and his incapacity for work did no doubt leave the impression that he had not been employed in the meantime at all.

Now if the evidence given by the plaintiff as to his visual acuity is scrutinized it will be found that he represented it as leaving him with a sense of light colour and movement and of the existence but not form of physical objects. Only could he distinguish form or shape and identify physical objects at a distance of inches. He had said that he mowed the grass outside his house, pushed the mower, that is presumably on the nature strip. All that the new evidence would prove is compatible with his having gone down to the hotel in company with his wife and of having attempted to be useful about the bar rooms and of being found in the end to be of no service, breaking many glasses through his insufficient sight.

In her evidence his wife said that she had given up some employment she was in before the accident in order to look after him and the house. Consistently with this she took employment at the hotel for less than two hours a day because he could accompany her. The failure at the trial to disclose the facts relating to her employment and his own former employment at the hotel does not necessarily imply that the husband and wife considered it inconsistent with the account they gave of his visual condition. It may just as well have been due to their desire not to imperil the invalid pension by disclosing publicly that either or both of them earned money. Some point was made that the date when he ceased to be employed at the hotel was during the week for which the action was first listed for trial. In fact, it did not come on for trial until four months later, 10th March 1952. But this is not the kind of conjectural inference to which weight can be given on a question whether the discovery of fresh evidence warrants a new trial. So far as the appellant-defendant bases the application for a new trial on an allegation that the plaintiff obtained the large assessment of damages by deception it is enough to say that such a ground must be distinctly alleged and satisfactorily proved. In Jonesco v. Beard [1] Lord Buckmaster is emphatic in stating that if the procedure is by motion for a new trial based upon such an allegation as opposed to the established procedure of an independent action "the necessity for stating the particulars of the fraud and the burden of proof are no whit abated and all the strict rules of evidence apply."

Deception was not alleged and it certainly was not proved. Indeed in strictness there was no proof at all; for there was no evidence admissible on such an issue, merely an affidavit of statements made by the licensee or on his behalf to the appellant's officers.

So far as the application is based on the discovery of fresh evidence, the facts said to have been discovered do not reach the standard required to warrant a new trial. Consistently with them exactly the same view of the plaintiff's visual condition might be taken as on the evidence laid before the jury. Of course they might have made a great difference. But the question is not what significance might be attached to them or how they might be used. It is a question depending on their having so high a probative force that acting reasonably the jury must, if they had been proved, have made a substantially lower assessment of damages. It may be remarked that no attempt was made to sift the proposed evidence before the Supreme Court. No affidavit by the publican was filed and he was not called as a witness on the new trial motion. If he refused to make an affidavit he could at least have been called upon subpoena. Some more precise information as to what the appellant-defendant was really able to prove was surely necessary before a new trial was ordered because of his discovery of further material.

Perhaps it is desirable to add that the respondent-plaintiff made no point concerning the possibility of the new evidence being discovered by the defendant before the trial by the exercise of reasonable diligence.

The case is unsatisfactory because of the very high award of damages made by the jury. But once an attack on this as excessive was disowned on the part of the appellant-defendant the appeal became one to be decided according to the settled rule, founded largely on policy, against lightly disturbing verdicts because of the discovery of further information.

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