Bagiante v Bunnings Group Limited

DISTRICT COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:

Bagiante v Bunnings Group Limited [2012] QDC 120

PARTIES:

LEANNE GRACE BAGIANTE
(plaintiff)

v

BUNNINGS GROUP LIMITED
(defendant)

FILE NO:

D133/11

DIVISION:

Civil

PROCEEDING:

Claim

ORIGINATING COURT:

District Court, Southport

DELIVERED ON:

31 May 2012

DELIVERED AT:

Brisbane

HEARING DATES:

22 and 23 May 2012

JUDGE:

Dorney QC, DCJ

ORDER:

1.   The plaintiff have judgment against the defendant in the sum of $269,644.70 (inclusive of interest).

2.   The parties have leave to file, and serve, written submissions on costs by 4:00pm 7 June 2012, if a consent order cannot be agreed.

CATCHWORDS:

Damages – measure of damages – personal injuries

COUNSEL:

D J Murphy for the Plaintiff
W D Campbell the Defendant

SOLICITORS:

Sciaccas Lawyers for the Plaintiff
Bruce Thomas Lawyers for the Defendant

Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003 (Qld)

Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Hellicar & Ors [2012] HCA 17; (2012) 286 ALR 501
Cooper v Gladstone City Council [2002] QDC 174
Jones v Dunkel (1959) 101 CLR 298
Judge v RH Grey & SonPty Ltd& Ors [2012] QDC 33
Malec v Hutton (1990) 169 CLR 638
Micallef v Collier [2004] QDC 120

Introduction

1. This proceeding was commenced by way of Claim filed 24 March 2011.

1. The plaintiff is a female who was aged 47 at the date of the accident on 26 August 2008 and is presently aged 50 (being born on 4 July 1961).  The plaintiff suffered personal injury when employed by the defendant (“Bunnings”) whilst she was engaged in a company sponsored game of “tunnel ball”.

1. Liability is not in issue.  Consequently, the issue in this Court is her measure of damages.

1. The trial proceeded by way of oral evidence (supplemented by written reports from the various expert witnesses) and the admission by agreement of a bundle of documents subject to objections and witnesses being called (which became Exhibit 3) together with several more documents, with specific reference to matters in issue, which became exhibits during the trial.

Nature of injury

1. All the relevant orthopaedic specialists have agreed that the original injury, sustained when the plaintiff slipped while moving from a relatively rough surface floor to a relatively smooth surface floor, was a closed fracture of the left ankle.

1. The dispute concerns the present consequences of that original injury.  It is to be noted, at this stage, that there is little difference between the psychiatrists called both by the plaintiff and the defendant with respect to the plaintiff suffering a causally related chronic adjustment disorder, with mixed anxiety and depression.  More will be said later about the extent of that consequence.

1. It is not in contest between the orthopaedic experts that the fracture was an undisplaced one to the lateral malleolus of the left ankle.  It was also expressly conceded by Dr John Fraser, called by the defendant, that the dominant pathology which is ongoing is “really chrondral”, even though he only conceded, as a possibility, that chrondral pathology was continuing to be the cause of…