Wakilii

Robert Coussens v Attorney General (Civil Appeal No. 8 of 1999)

Supreme Court · [2000] UGSC 41 · 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 injury caused by negligence.
Decision
Appeal dismissed; trial court's award of Shs 50,000,000 general damages confirmed.

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Holding

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. Pre-trial loss of earnings may be claimed as special damages, while prospective loss of earnings is general damages assessed at the court's discretion; but any estimate must rest on solid proved facts, chiefly the claimant's actual income at the time of injury. The appellant was not working when shot and produced no reliable proof of pre-injury earnings, so the USD 72,000 figure was speculative. The Court of Appeal had re-evaluated the evidence and correctly upheld the trial judge's discretionary award of Shs 50,000,000 general damages. An appellate court will not interfere with a damages award absent a wrong principle or a manifestly erroneous estimate.

Facts

The appellant, a 25-year-old American 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 personal injuries, claiming USD 1,025,000 for loss of income, calculated on an expected diving income of USD 72,000 per year over a 20-year career, reduced by USD 22,000 in alternative earnings. At the time of injury he had been in Uganda for six to seven months, was not working, was earning no income, and had declined diving work offered to him locally. His evidence about pre-injury weekly wages from Maryland Diving Services was inconsistent and the documentary wage record was illegible. The trial court found he had not proved actual earnings at the time of injury and, treating the case as unique, awarded Shs 50,000,000 as general damages.

Issues

  1. Whether an award of damages for loss of income could be made where the appellant was not working at the time he was injured.
  2. Whether loss of future income, being a component of general damages, must be strictly proved in the manner required of special damages.
  3. Whether the Court of Appeal, as the first appellate court, failed in its duty to re-evaluate and assess the evidence relating to the appellant's lost income.
  4. Whether the appellate court could interfere with the trial court's discretionary award of general damages.

Orders

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

Key headnotes

Personal Injury — Loss of Earnings — Special Damages versus General Damages
Pre-trial loss of earnings, being capable of exact or approximate proof, may be pleaded and proved as special damages, whereas post-trial (prospective) loss of earnings has not accrued by the date of trial and is recoverable as general damages assessed in the court's discretion.
Loss of Future Earnings — Proof — Actual Income at Time of Injury
An estimate of prospective loss of earnings must be founded on solid proved facts, foremost the actual income the claimant was earning at the time of injury; without such a foundation the figure is not an estimate but a guess.
Negligence — Loss of Earning Capacity — Claimant Not in Employment
A plaintiff who was not earning income at the time of injury, and who adduces no proof that he was exercising a capacity to earn, suffers no recoverable pecuniary loss of earnings.
Measure of Damages — Restitutio in Integrum
The measure of damages in tort is the sum of money that will put the injured party in the same position as he would have been in had he not sustained the wrong.
Appeal — Interference with Award of Damages
An appellate court will not interfere with a trial court's assessment of damages unless the trial court acted on a wrong principle of law or the amount awarded is so high or so low as to be an entirely erroneous estimate of the damages to which the party is entitled.
Appeal — First Appellate Court — Duty to Re-evaluate Evidence
A first appellate court is under a duty to re-appraise the evidence and reach its own conclusions; on the record the Court of Appeal discharged that duty in re-evaluating the evidence of the claimant's alleged lost income.

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
  • BulUngha vs. Hughs [1949] 1 K B 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 The 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 [1979] 3 WLR 44
  • Mitchell v Mulholland [1972] 1 QB 65
  • Mbozo v Shah [1968] EA 93
  • Owen v Sykes [1936] 1 KB 192
  • Flint v Lovell [1935] 1 KB 354
  • Maljibhai vs The Patidar Samaj & Anor (1944) EHCA 1
  • Mitford Bowker (1947) 14 EHCA 20
  • Watson v Powles [1968] 1 QB 596
  • Obongo v Municipal Council of Kisumu [1971] EA 91
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.