Wakilii

Robert Cuosssens v Attorney General [2000] UGSC 2

Supreme Court · 2000 Appeal Dismissed ✦ AI-generated summary ↓ Download
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Second appeal to the Supreme Court from the Court of Appeal's dismissal of an appeal against a High Court award of damages for personal injuries caused by negligence.
Decision
Appeal dismissed; the High Court award of UGX 50,000,000 general damages, as confirmed by the Court of Appeal, stands.

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Cited — treatment unverified cited in 11 (treatment unverified) Derived from citing cases in the Wakilii corpus — not an assertion that this case is good law.

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Holding

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. Pre-trial loss of earnings may be pleaded and proved as special damages, while post-trial (future) loss is claimed as general damages assessed in the court's discretion; but in both cases the claimant must prove a foundation of solid facts, above all his actual earnings at the time of injury. The appellant, a deep-sea diver who was not working and earned nothing in the months before being shot, did not prove the USD 72,000 annual income claimed. The trial court therefore properly declined the loss-of-earnings claim and awarded UGX 50,000,000 general damages by reference to comparable cases. The appellate court would not disturb a discretionary award absent a wrong principle or a wholly erroneous estimate.

Facts

The appellant, a 25-year-old American national and professional deep-sea diver, was in Uganda visiting his family when he was negligently shot and severely injured by members of the Uganda Police Force who allegedly mistook him for a car thief. Medical evidence established that the injuries permanently rendered him unfit to work as a diver. He sued the Attorney General for special and general damages, claiming he had been earning USD 72,000 per year and would have continued for 20 years, and prayed for USD 1,025,000 for loss of income (the difference between USD 72,000 and an alternative income of USD 22,000 over 20 years). His evidence was that he earned about USD 960 per week from Maryland Diving Services, with weekly wages varying between USD 948 and USD 1,106. In cross-examination he admitted he had not worked or earned anything during the six to seven months he had spent in Uganda before the shooting, and had declined an offer of work at Mombasa. The USD 72,000 figure reflected what a diver of his qualifications could earn in places such as the North Sea, Singapore or Mombasa, not his proven actual earnings.

Issues

  1. Whether loss of future income, being an aspect of general damages, must be strictly proved in the manner of special damages.
  2. Whether the appellant proved the income he was actually earning at the time of his injury so as to ground an award for loss of earnings.
  3. Whether the Court of Appeal, as the first appellate court, failed in its duty to re-evaluate and assess the evidence.
  4. Whether the appellate court was entitled to interfere with the trial court's discretionary award of general damages.

Orders

  • Appeal dismissed.
  • Each party to bear its own costs of the appeal to the Supreme Court.
  • Costs in the Court of Appeal to the respondent as ordered by that court.

Key headnotes

Personal Injury — Loss of Earnings — Special and General Damages Distinguished
Pre-trial loss of earnings (income lost between the date of injury and trial) may be pleaded and proved as special damages, whereas post-trial prospective loss of earnings cannot be claimed as special damages because it has not yet been sustained, and is awarded as part of general damages assessed in the court's discretion.
Personal Injury — Loss of Earnings — Proof of Pre-Injury Income
An estimate of prospective loss of earnings must rest on a foundation of solid facts and not on speculation; the actual income the plaintiff was earning at the time of injury is a material fact that must be proved before such loss can be assessed.
Personal Injury — Loss of Earning Capacity — No Award Where Plaintiff Not Working
A plaintiff is not entitled to damages for loss of capacity to earn money unless it is established that he would, but for his injuries, have exercised that capacity to earn; a person not in gainful occupation and earning nothing at the time of injury suffers no recoverable loss of earnings.
Assessment of Damages — Restitutio in Integrum — Measure of Damages
The object of an award of damages, whether in contract or tort, is to put the injured party in the same position, so far as money can, as he would have been in had he not sustained the wrong, on the principle of restitutio in integrum.
Appeals — Appellate Interference with Discretionary Award of Damages
An appellate court will not interfere with a trial court's award of damages unless the trial court acted on a wrong principle of law or the amount is so high or so low as to make it an entirely erroneous estimate of the damages to which the plaintiff is entitled.
Appeals — Duty of First Appellate Court to Re-evaluate Evidence
A first appellate court is obliged to re-appraise the evidence and reach its own conclusions; an erroneous statement that loss of future earnings must be proved as special damages does not vitiate the decision where the court in fact re-appraised the evidence and correctly found the claimed income unproved, causing no miscarriage of justice.

Legislation cited (2)

  • Rules of the Supreme Court r.43(2)
  • Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (Cap. 74)

Cases cited (23)

  • British Transport Commission v Gourley [1956] AC 185
  • Livingstone v Rawyards Coal Co (1880) 5 App Cas 259
  • Daly v General Steam Navigation Co Ltd [1980] 3 All ER 696
  • Bullingha vs Hughs [1949] 1 KB 643
  • Phillips v London and South Western Railway Co (1879-80) 5 QBD 78
  • Davies v Powell Duffryn Associated Collieries Ltd [1942] AC 601
  • Browning v War Office [1963] 1 QB 750
  • Payne v Railway Executive [1951] 2 All ER 901
  • Cookson v Knowles [1979] AC 556
  • Graham v Dodds [1983] 2 All ER 953
  • Fletcher v Autocar and Transporters Ltd [1968] 2 QB 322
  • Pope v D Murphy & Son Ltd [1961] 1 QB 222
  • Parry v Cleaver [1970] AC 1
  • Pickett v British Rail Engineering Ltd [1980] AC 136
  • Lim Poh Choo v Camden and Islington Area Health Authority [1980] AC 174
  • Mitchell v Mulholland (No 2) [1972] 1 QB 65
  • Owen v Sykes [1936] 1 KB 192
  • Flint v Lovell [1935] 1 KB 354
  • Maljibhai vs The Patidar Samaj & Anor (1944) EHCA 1
  • Mitford vs Bowker (1947) 14 EHCA 20
  • Watson v Powles [1968] 1 QB 596
  • Obongo v Municipal Council of Kisumu [1971] EA 91
  • Mbogo v Shah [1968] EA 93
Source: this page presents Wakilii’s issue analysis and metadata for a publicly reported Ugandan judgment. Any AI-generated summary is marked as such. Judgment text is sourced from the Uganda Legal Information Institute (ulii.org). Wakilii is not affiliated with ULII.