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The amount of damages awarded by the courts for personal injury have increased over the years. Read the case of Sharman v Evans (1977) 138 CLR 563. The award of damages in this case was at the time the largest ever made in Australia.
Later cases involve much larger sums.
- In 1981 an award of $2.6 million was made for a person injured in a railway accident.
- In 1991 a $3.8 million award was made for a plaintiff rendered quadriplegic.
- In 1993 an award of $8 million was made in Burford v Allen (1993) 60 SASR 428.
The trend continues, due in part to the need to estimate how inflation will affect the value of lump-sum awards.
There is a danger that awards of damages will become so large that they are economically unsustainable (eg by making insurance premiums unaffordable). Legislation has now been passed in the various Australian jurisdictions to limit the amounts (or specify the methods used to determine the amounts) payable as compensation in personal injury cases. Such limitations may disadvantage individual plaintiffs but Australian governments have been more concerned to ensure that economically and socially beneficial activities are not stopped because of the threat of massive personal injury claims.
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