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The term 'personal injury' covers all the consequences of bodily injury, nervous shock, disease and illness. It thus includes the economic and other consequences of such injury, such as medical costs, costs of future care, lost earnings, pain and suffering; lost of amenity (that is, the loss or reduction of a plaintiff's mental or physical capacity to do the things s/he used to be able to do), and shortened life expectancy. At common law, certain general principles apply to an award of damages for personal injury. These are:
1. Plaintiffs should be awarded a sum of money that will, as nearly as possible, put them in the same position as if the tort had not occurred.
2. Damages for one particular cause of action must be recovered once and forever, and (in the absence of any statutory exception) must be awarded in a lump sum.
3. The court has no concern with the way plaintiffs use the sum awarded to them; they are free to do what they like with it.
4. A plaintiff bears the burden of proving the injury or loss for which they seek damages.
Legislation in most of the states and territories has significantly altered these fundamental common law rules. For example, in many cases, limits (or 'caps') have been placed on damages for loss of future earning capacity. In other cases, a minimum degree of harm is laid down as a 'threshold', below which damages may not be claimed for non-economic losses (such as physical injury). The provisions of Part 2 and 3 Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW) are an example.
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