Owen v Sykes
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Date | 1936 |
| Year | 1936 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
Damages - Personal Injuries - Trial before Judge without a Jury - Damages awarded by Judge - Appeal on ground that damages excessive - When an award of damages by Judge alone will be reviewed on appeal.
An appeal from a judge trying a case without a jury is a rehearing by the Court of Appeal with regard to all the questions involved in the action, including the question what damages ought to be awarded. But the Court of Appeal will be disinclined to reverse the finding of a trial judge as to the amount of damages merely because they think that if they had tried the case in the first instance they would have given a lesser sum. In order to justify reversing the trial judge on the question of the amount of damages it will generally be necessary that the Court of Appeal should be convinced either that the trial judge acted upon some wrong principle of law, or that the amount awarded was so extremely high or so very small as to make it, in the judgment of the Court of Appeal, an entirely erroneous estimate of the damage to which the plaintiff is entitled.
A doctor, in general practice, who was thirty-nine years of age and an athlete, sustained severe injuries in an accident through the negligence of the defendant's servant, the injuries having permanent results which necessitated the doctor employing an assistant to help him carry on his practice and also prevented him from following his athletic career. The doctor brought an action against the defendant to recover damages for his personal injuries, which action was tried by a judge without a jury, and the judge awarded the plaintiff the sum of 10,000l. as damages. The defendant appealed against the decision on the ground (inter alia) that the damages were excessive:—
Held, by the Court of Appeal that although if they had tried the case in the first instance they would probably have awarded a smaller sum as damages, yet they would not review the finding of the trial judge as to the amount of damages, as they were not satisfied that the trial judge acted upon a wrong principle of law, or that the amount awarded as damages was so high as to make it an entirely erroneous estimate of the damage to which the plaintiff was entitled.
APPEAL from a decision of Greaves-Lord J. at the Liverpool Assizes on the trial of an action without a jury.
The plaintiff, Cyril Hamilton Owen, was thirty-nine years of age and was a physician and surgeon carrying on a large general practice at Liverpool. The defendant, Frank Sykes, was the owner of a motor coach.
On February 10, 1935, the plaintiff was walking along the covered way which runs between Bridge Street, Warrington, on the one hand, and the yard of the Lion Hotel, Warrington, and the garage and premises in the rear thereof, on the other hand, for the purpose of entering the hotel as a customer by way of the door which opens from the covered way into the hotel, when the defendant's motor coach was driven along the covered way in such a manner as to trap the plaintiff and crush him against the wall at the side of the covered way, causing the plaintiff to sustain very severe injuries.
The plaintiff brought an action against the defendant alleging that the accident was due to the negligence of the defendant or his servant, and claiming damages for the injuries which he had sustained and for the expense, loss and damage to which he had been and would be put. The special damage which he claimed for the expenses to which he had been put amounted to 268l. He alleged that by reason of his injuries he would be less able to carry on his practice in the future and unable to earn the income which he would have earned but for his injuries, and that he would be permanently prevented from following his athletic career and activities.
The defendant in his defence alleged that the plaintiff sustained his injuries and damage solely through his own negligence or that his negligence contributed to such injuries and damage.
Evidence was given at the trial that the plaintiff, who previously had been an athlete, was now, owing to the injuries he sustained through the accident, subject to extreme physical fatigue, exhaustion and faintness on the slightest effort; that he had a permanent impairment of breathing powers and permanent limitation of expansion of the left lung, and a permanent increased susceptibility to pulmonary ailments, and that it would be necessary for him to have an assistant in his practice at a cost of 300l. or 400l. a year.
Greaves-Lord J. held that the accident was caused solely by the negligence of the driver of the motor coach, who did not see the plaintiff at all. He went on to say: But now comes the most difficult part of the whole case, arriving at a proper sum for damages. It is a terrible injury in this case. One has to bear in mind that an assistant for the doctor's practice would probably cost 300l. or 400l. a year, but as against that the probabilities are that if the plaintiff gets a good assistant it would increase the practice and that to a great extent would help him towards paying the 300l. or 400l. a year, even allowing for the fact that the plaintiff himself will do less than he has done. That has to be...
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McMullan v Coleraine Football and Sports Club Limited and Sandel Building Company
...AC 601. [23] If the judge has given undue or insufficient weight to the evidence, this falls within the first category: Owens v Sykes [1936] 1 KB 192. If it can be shown that the judge must have wrongly taken or failed to take certain elements into consideration, this falls within the secon......
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Davies v Powell Duffryn Associated Collieries (No. 2)
...LondonandNorthern Eastern Railway Co. [1938], A.C. 606. The principle upon which a change will be made is, I think, accurately set out in Owen v. Sykes [1936], 1 K.B. 192, where it is stated that the finding of the trial Judge as to the amount of damages will not be reviewed unless the Appe......
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Toon Chee Meng Eddie v Yeap Chin Hon
...the following authorities: Flint v Lovell [1935] 1 KB 354 Davies v Powell Duffryn Associated Collieries Ltd [1942] AC 601 Owen v Sykes [1936] 1 KB 192 Nance v British Columbia Electric Railway Co Ltd [1951] AC 601 Taylor v O`Connor [1971] AC 115[1970] 1 All ER 365[1970] 2 WLR 472 Pickett (A......
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