Content area
Full Text
The guidelines for personal injuries awards in Hong Kong was reviewed by the Court of Appeal in July 1996 in the case of Chan Pui Ki v Leung On and the Kowloon Motor Bus Co (1933) Ltd. The case involved a 10-year-old girl who, in 1989, sustained massive heads injuries and brain damage as a result of being knocked down by a negligent bus driver. Her mother sought loss of future earnings based on the multiplier and multiplicand approach. In recent Hong Kong decisions using this approach, a conventional multiplier of between 10 and 13 was used. Where lump sums were awarded to infants, these had ranged from around HK$50,000 ($6,500) to HK$450,000 ($58,500).
In the Chan case, an expert witness produced evidence of various determining factors, such as Hong Kong's real interest rate, wage increases, median returns on various investments and Hong Kong's future economic trends to show that, if a conventional multiplier were used, the fund would "be exhausted long before the end of the period intended to be covered by the lump sum payment" At first instance, Cheung J held that a multiplier of 30 should be used.
The original guidelines in Hong Kong were set in 1980. These provided for lower awards than those in the UK because of the UK's comparatively higher living standard. However, the court in the present case found that social and economic conditions in Hong Kong were now comparable to those in the UK. Cheung J recommended that the current level of awards be increased by 50% and that the following awards be given in future for the different categories of injuries:
Serious injuries - HK$400,000 to HK$540,000
Substantial injuries- HK$540,000 to HK$660,000
Gross disability-HK$660,000 to HK$1,000,000
Disaster -HK$1,000,000 upwards
The court awarded approximately HK$6.4 million to the plaintiff whose injuries came within the disaster category.
The defendants appealed...