Azizah bte Chalan Hassan v Chan Poh Teong

[1] On 22 April 2005 at 4 pm, the plaintiff and her friend Zaiton were in a taxi licensed as SH9441J and driven by the defendant. The taxi collided into the rear of a military vehicle along Mandai Road. Both passengers were injured. The plaintiff commenced this action against the taxi driver and interlocutory judgment was entered against the defendant on 7 February 2007. The assessment of damages was carried out on 27 and 28 November 2007 and continued on 28 January 2008, concluding on 30 January 2008.

[3] Counsel for the plaintiff argued that the assistant registrar should have awarded her $4,100 a month as loss of monthly earnings instead of $1,720. The income record adduced before the assistant registrar did not support the plaintiff’s claim. She was a henna artist working as a junior partner to Zaiton. The assistant registrar was not wrong in the way she calculated the plaintiff’s share. That was not the quarrel. The plaintiff’s main basis for claiming the larger income was that she had a lucrative business in Japan, but the evidence in support of that claim was sparse and the assistant registrar did not seem impressed by the oral testimony of either the plaintiff or Zaiton. I am in no position to find otherwise. Her claim for loss of future earnings was based substantially on the diagnosis of “post traumatic stress disorder” which prevented her from working. The accident had either given her or exacerbated the condition which led to the plaintiff developing “carpel tunnel syndrome” which made her hand twitch. The medical evidence which the assistant registrar appeared to accept was that this condition could easily be corrected by a minor day-surgery. Till this date the plaintiff had not had that corrected, and counsel submitted that it was her post traumatic stress disorder that made her fearful of surgery. That was more a legal submission than a medical opinion. The psychiatric evidence did not go so far. In any event, the defendant’s expert differed from the plaintiff’s expert in the psychiatric assessment. It is possible that the plaintiff might have developed some form of depression after the accident, but how much of that can one attribute to the defendant’s tortuous act? There are no impeccable principles to apply, no sure way of determining an exact co-relation, and no use focusing on one aspect (post traumatic stress disorder) and ignoring the overall circumstances of the case which would have required the assistant registrar to take into account (as she seemed to have done) the relatively minor physical injuries, the optimistic prognosis, cure, and corrective treatment. In an assessment of damages proceedings, the assistant registrar was duty bound to apply the principles of compensation; she was not evaluating the computation of the plaintiff’s pension. A plaintiff in the circumstances such as this plaintiff must make the effort to carry on with her life. The medical evidence indicated that she could if she would. There was no reason for me to allow her appeal in respect of either head of damages.

[4] Counsel thought that the plaintiff was being penalized for sloth by the reduction of interests by 50% on her special damages. The award of 2.67%, however, in my view, was not unconventional for special damages under current practice. There was no reason to hold otherwise.