The legal onus of proof of loss of earning capacity rests on the plaintiff, but once the plaintiff proves loss of pre-accident earning capacity and inability to find alternative employment, an evidentiary burden shifts to the defendant to show what alternative employment opportunities were open. An erroneous statement of this principle by a trial judge does not vitiate the assessment if the result falls within the range of a sound discretionary judgment. The statutory threshold in s 93D(2)(b) of the Workers' Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 1991 (WA) requires discrete assessment of future pecuniary loss and cannot be circumvented by a global assessment approach.
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