53.2 If he had done so he would have become aware of such matters.
54 In my view the evidence suggests that the plaintiff failed to seek treatment for what was a significant health problem when the signs were clear to anyone who cared to look, that his life was being consumed, or at the very least substantially adversely affected, by alcohol and his addiction to it. It is not relevant for present purposes whether the addiction pre-dated the collision or whether it was causally connected to it. Arguments about the defendant's responsibility for the plaintiff's alcoholism do not of themselves inform an answer to the question of whether or not the plaintiff ought to have taken steps to obtain treatment for it. Whatever its cause or causes, there is a wealth of evidence, with the existence of which the plaintiff himself agrees, to suggest that something was or ought to have been apparent that needed urgently to be addressed.
55 The most obvious, although by no means the only, example of this can be found in the episode culminating in his committal to a facility in New Zealand on the application of his wife. The plaintiff's written submissions described that episode in the following terms:
"The position in relation to the 1985 court order and admission is even clearer. Plainly, Mr Quirke's wife was aware that he had a drinking problem but he did not accept it. Mr Quirke's own actions at the time vividly demonstrate his complete lack of insight into his problems. As acknowledged in cross-examination, he had been on a pretty severe bender for some months. He was spending long hours at the pub, arriving home very late, spending all his money on alcohol and providing insufficient financial support to his wife and family. He had at least three drink driving offences to his credit. He was in a pretty bad way but it is plain he did not realise it. He did not think he had a problem or needed help and refused to even be examined until compelled. Even after a court order was obtained and he was detained for treatment against his will, he did not accept the need for it. Indeed, his evidence suggests that he does not accept it now. Accordingly, he did a "runner" and had to be rearrested and was brought before the Court again."
56 The significance of this as a life event, and as an event in the relationship he had with his wife and his family, requires no additional emphasis beyond recalling what occurred. The social and emotional predicament that this episode presented to the plaintiff demanded an appropriate response from him. It did not receive such a response. Instead, the plaintiff retreated to notions of denial and disaffection. He did not have anything to do with the counsellors at the Bridge Programme and in fact simply ignored them. He then absconded. He was aware that he had been subjected to the whole process because some people believed that he needed assistance with the state of his alcohol consumption but he "didn't agree with that". In my view, that attitude was not one that the plaintiff could, or should, reasonably have held at that time, bearing in mind that that "question is not asked in some general moral sense, in terms such as 'he owed it to himself' or 'he owed it to his family' but in the sense of whether, not having sought medical help [earlier], he should now be allowed to claim that his medical condition was caused by the Commonwealth": see Shaw (supra) per Basten JA at par [71].
57 I also find that the plaintiff drank for reasons associated with, or related to, the collision and that this would have become known to him if he had sought appropriate medical advice. This is apparent for at least two reasons. First, so much emerges from the reports of Dr Holwill and Professor McFarlane. Their reports speak with admirable clarity about the existence of an alcohol problem and the continuing relationship between that problem and the collision. A similar presentation to any other qualified medical professional would in all likelihood have produced a similar result. As the plaintiff's submissions noted, each was able to diagnose the plaintiff's psychiatric conditions and neither expressed any difficulty in doing so. The plaintiff would in my view have told the hypothetical medical practitioner to whom he should have presented himself about all of the same things that permitted Dr Holwill and Professor McFarlane to conclude that he had a long history of alcohol abuse. The aetiology of his PTSD would in my view have clearly emerged. The plaintiff would have been told that he was suffering from a personal injury and would have become aware of its nature and extent.
58 Even if the plaintiff did not recognise that he had what he would have described or recognised as a medical problem, there were sufficient indications to the plaintiff that he was in need of help for simply drinking to excess. The plaintiff in fact conceded in cross-examination that he knew that the Bridge Programme conducted a unit principally designed to treat and hopefully to rehabilitate people suffering from alcohol addiction. The plaintiff could have been left in no doubt about his need for treatment even if he retained no desire to seek it.
59 Secondly, the plaintiff has given evidence that I find demonstrates that he recognised that there was a connection between his alcohol consumption and the collision. The version given by him in his first affidavit is to this effect. Subsequent restatements of his understanding are difficult to accept as genuine, or at the very best as persuasive or convincing, in the light both of what is deposed to in the first affidavit and subsequent judicial statements made before the later affidavit. Moreover, the plaintiff's evidence in cross-examination makes it clear that he knew of the connection. He was drinking to forget about the collision or to eradicate thoughts of it that prevented him from sleeping. As he said, he drank to cope with it all.
60 I find that the plaintiff knew by 1985, although probably well before this time, that his drinking was a problem for him and that at least by then, or within a very short period thereafter, he should have sought treatment for it or advice about it. It seems reasonably likely that he would have received that treatment if he had remained on the Bridge Programme. I find that if he had sought appropriate treatment he would have been made aware of all of the matters of which he is presently aware, but in particular that he had suffered personal injury in the collision and the nature and extent of that personal injury. I also find that if he had sought medical help at an earlier time, his condition would have been diagnosed, much as it has now been diagnosed, as involving a mental disorder attributable to the collision.
61 The plaintiff made a particular legal submission with respect to whether or not he ought to have been aware of the s 60I(1)(a)(iii) "connection" for the purposes of s 60I(1)(b). This submission was that the plaintiff was unaware of the connection to which s 60I(1)(a)(iii) refers and that it had not been, and could not be, shown that the plaintiff "ought to have become aware" of it more than three years before the present application was commenced, in accordance with s 60I(1)(b). The plaintiff submitted that this was because the defendant led no evidence, and presumably submitted that there was no evidence, including the cross-examination of the plaintiff, about enquiries that should reasonably have been undertaken by the plaintiff "that would have led to him gaining knowledge of all of the acts and omissions leading to the collision" (emphasis added). These words require examination.
62 It is inherent in this submission that the relevant level of knowledge, which it must be shown the plaintiff ought to have had, is not limited to the factual connection between his personal injury and the collision simpliciter but that it extended to demonstrating that the plaintiff ought to have had a knowledge of "all of the acts and omissions leading to the collision". This submission appears to encompass the notion that it would have to be demonstrated that the plaintiff ought to have been required to make a causal connection not merely between his personal injury on the one hand and the collision on the other hand, but between his personal injury and all the allegedly relevant particulars of fault on the part of the defendant that caused the collision in a legal sense.