Collaroy Services Beach Club Ltd v Haywood

[2007] NSWCA 21

NSW Court of Appeal

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Interrogate

Catchwords

1. Evidence
2. › Expert evidence
3. › Admissibility
4. › Whether evidence related to specialised knowledge or merely told jury how accident happened
5. › Reconstruction experiments on replica staircase
6. › Whether assumptions sufficiently supported by evidence
7. › Evidence Act 1995 (NSW), s 79
1. Evidence
2. › Expert evidence
3. › Admissibility
4. › Assumptions underlying expert opinion
5. › Whether assumed facts sufficiently like established facts to render opinion of value
6. › Whether jury entitled to find assumed facts by inference
1. Evidence
2. › Discretionary exclusion
3. › Unfair prejudice
4. › Exercise of discretion under s 135 of Evidence Act 1995
5. › Appellate review of discretionary exclusion
6. › House v The King principles
1. Damages
2. › Assessment by jury
3. › Appellate review of jury verdict
4. › Whether award manifestly excessive
5. › Whether appellate court may have regard to awards in other personal injury cases
6. › Planet Fisheries Pty Ltd v La Rosa

Quick Take

The Weiss v The Queen reasoning concerning the 'no substantial miscarriage of justice' proviso in criminal appeals applies to the interpretation of SCR Pt 51 r 23 governing new trials in civil jury cases. Planet Fisheries Pty Ltd v La Rosa remains binding authority precluding an appellate court reviewing a jury's damages award from having comparative regard to awards in other personal injury cases. Expert evidence reconstructing the mechanism of an accident based on anatomical and biomechanical expertise is admissible where the assumptions are sufficiently supported by evidence or available inference, even where the reconstruction does not exactly reproduce the circumstances of the accident.