6 July 2007

$1million awarded for fender-bender

| fnaah
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According to the ABC News website, a Canberra woman has been awarded over $1million in compensation for a car accident.

Here’s the kicker: the accident was so mild that there was no damage worth reporting to either vehicle.

Not only that, but according to Justice Ken Crispin, there was “no objective evidence to show a disabling injury or condition”, but decided that absence of evidence was not the same as absence of injury.

Please, Justice Crispin, I hurt my foot on… uh… something. Can I have a million too?

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Well that’s not very talkback radio of you VicePope, what with the logic and common sense and everything.

Where’s the enraged squealing? 🙂

And this is why we have appeals. If the decision was as outrageous as was reported, surely the other party (ok, the other insurer) will appeal. The appeal will settle any point of law underlying what seems a perplexing decision. On the other hand, Crispin J (unlike the rest of us) is an experienced judge who was there for all the argument and all the evidence, and I suppose it’s possible he got it right. If no-one appeals, we can assume all parties accept that he did.

Grammar? Get it right dear child. Grammar deals with sentence structure and punctuation.

Please don’t feel the need to correct me when you don’t know what you’re reference base is and I’ll refrain from thanking you….mmkay?

Oh well Nyssa, you’ve corrected the minutiae of my grammar in the past so I thought I’d return the favour.

No need to thank me, it’s the least I could do!

boomacat – care factor?

NickD – it’s kinda sad though because some people lose limbs, children or their own lives in car accidents and get nothing.

Wow, it’s impressive that so many of you have already read the court transcript and are able to speak knowledgeably about what seems to have been a very unusual case!

He is a Judge; not a Magistrate.

We’ve all learned this: you’d want him as your magistrate in a liability lawsuit.

sepi, her names no secret, just have to look at the right news article – Judith Victoria Vaughan

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22029625-421,00.html

Why is her name a secred anyway – surely it was an open court?

Sounds like a completely fabricated story by the press. Probably had a gap to fill on the page and decided to put in something that would create a stir.

Judges are weird. In that recent defamation case against the SMH restaurant reviewer, a jury of normal people found that the paper was not guilty and not liable. On appeal though, heard by a panel of High court judges, the SMH got pasted and slammed.

And who pays? either way, we do. Through taxes, or higher insurance premiums.

Vic Bitterman8:11 pm 06 Jul 07

I bet it’s a New Australian that got the cash.

You can stuff a million dollars down my throat anyday, so long as it’s MY million dollars.

what a leech. People like this should get their cash stuffed down their throats.

Where does the million come from? Insurance money – or taxpayers?

Snahons_scv6_berlina4:51 pm 06 Jul 07

I especially like the comments from the judge “… whilst her condition may improve when the litigation is resolved…” – smh web site

A million dollars worth of whiplash?

I was once rear-ended hard enough to give me mild wiplash, and there was no evidence of any impact to the rear of the vehicle.

An eyewitness said that the rear bumper caved in, and then popped right back out again.

That’s a bit of a travesty.

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