Longden v. British Coal Corporation

LORD GOFF OF CHIEVELEY

My Lords,

          I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speech prepared by my noble and learned friend, Lord Hope of Craighead. For the reasons he gives I would allow this appeal.

LORD SLYNN OF HADLEY

My Lords,

          I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speech prepared by my noble and learned friend, Lord Hope of Craighead. I agree that the appeal should be allowed to the extent indicated by him but should otherwise be dismissed.

LORD STEYN

My Lords,

          I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speech prepared by my noble and learned friend, Lord Hope of Craighead. For the reasons he gives I would also make the order which he proposes.

LORD HOPE OF CRAIGHEAD

My Lords,

          The question in this appeal relates to the assessment of damages in a claim of damages for personal injury. It concerns the treatment of a collateral benefit. The particular form of benefit with which we are concerned is an incapacity pension to which the plaintiff became entitled under his employers' staff superannuation scheme. This was a contributory pension scheme, which provided a pension to its contributors on their retirement from their employment at or after the normal retirement age. But it also provided an incapacity pension to its contributors in the event of their retirement before the normal retirement age on the ground of their ill-health. These were alternative forms of benefit, as contributors were entitled under the scheme to receive one or other of the two pensions but not both of them.

          The plaintiff sustained injury in an accident during the course of his employment at one of the defendants' collieries. The payments by way of pension which he received upon taking incapacity retirement after the accident consisted of an annual pension and a lump sum. It was accepted that these payments had to be ignored in the assessment of the plaintiff's claim for loss of earnings, both for the past and the future, until he reached the normal retirement age. But the plaintiff had also included in his claim for damages a claim for loss of pension after the normal retirement age. That loss was said to consist of the lump sum to which he would have been entitled on retirement had he continued in his employment until the normal retirement age, together with the difference between the annual retirement pension which he would have received after that date and the annual incapacity pension which he was in fact receiving and would continue to receive under the scheme. This approach to the assessment of his claim of damages was the same as that which was approved in Parry v. Cleaver [1970] AC 1 and Smoker v.…