The Supreme Court's Ceiling on Non-pecuniary Damages: The Trilogy Cases, Study notes of Law

Download The Supreme Court's Ceiling on Non-pecuniary Damages: The Trilogy Cases and more Study notes Law in PDF only on Docsity! Nonpecuniary Damages: T h e " T r i l o g y " In 1978, the Supreme Court of Canada established an upper limit on nonpecuniary damages when it delivered decisions in three cases: Andrews v. Grand & Toy Alberta Ltd., [1978] 2 S.C.R. 229Thorton v: Board o f School Trustees o f School District No. 5 7 I Prince George, [1978] 2 S.C.R. 267 Teno v Arnold, [1978] 2 S.C.R. 287 On the date of the accident, Andrews was a twenty-one-year-old apprentice employed by the Canadian National Railways. He was injured in a traffic accident involving a vehicle driven by a Grand & Toy employee. Fifteen year-old Gary Thorton was participating in a gymnastics class at his high school when he fractured his spinal cord while using the springboard and box horse. Diane Teno was struck by an oncoming car when she ran across the street to meet the ice-cream truck. She was only four and a half years old. In these cases, the plaintiffs had incurred such severe injuries that they were left with little more than life itself. All three plaintiffs suffered quadriplegia. In the "Trilogy" cases, the Supreme Court set a clear upper limit to the amount that can be awarded for non-pecuniary damages. In his opinion in Andrews v. Grand & Toy Alberta Ltd., Mr. Justice Dickson said: I would adopt as the appropriate award in the case of a young adult quadriplegic like Andrews the amount of $100,000. Save in exceptional circumstances, this should be regarded as an upper limit of nonpecuniary loss in cases of this nature. This upper limit was based on the grounds that damage awards should serve a useful function; neither high compensation for pain and suffering nor punitive awards help the plaintiff, but they do unfairly burden the defendant. In Teno v. Arnold, the Court said: The real difficulty is that an award of non-pecuniarv damages cannot be "compensation." There is simply no equation between paralyzed limbs and/or injured brain and dollars. The award is not reparative: there can be no restoration of the lost function. Explain the Supreme Court’s position regarding Non-pecuniary damages and the purpose of placing a ceiling on non-pecuniary damages. Docsity.com