Stevens v Head

In the High Court of Australia, the applicant, Stevens, sought special leave to appeal a decision concerning damages for personal injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident. The respondent was the party against whom the claim was brought. The core of the dispute revolved around the application of specific provisions of the *Motor Accidents Act 1988* (NSW), namely sections 72 and 79, which impose limitations on the recovery of damages for home care services and non-economic loss (pain and suffering).

The central legal issues before the High Court were twofold. Firstly, the Court was required to determine whether a court in a jurisdiction other than New South Wales was bound to give effect to these statutory limitations on damages. Secondly, the Court had to consider whether these provisions were properly classified as substantive law, which would generally be applied by the forum court, or as procedural law, which would typically be governed by the law of the forum.

The Court's reasoning was significantly influenced by the recent decision of *McKain*. The Full Court below had applied the principle of the primacy of the place of the tort, as established in *Breavington*, and concluded that sections 72 and 79 of the New South Wales Act were applicable to the assessment of damages. However, the majority in *McKain* had restated the application of private international law principles to intranational torts, adopting a modified rule from *Phillips v Eyre*. This approach, as articulated by Justice Brennan in *Breavington*, suggested that a plaintiff could sue in the forum to enforce a liability for a wrong occurring outside the forum's territory if certain conditions were met, implying a different analytical framework for determining the applicability of the New South Wales provisions.