Woman awarded $155,000 payout after Barton car crash

A woman who claimed she was injured in a triple-vehicle car crash has been awarded over $155,000 in damages.

Rouba Marhaba, then 46, was driving a Volkswagen Multivan when she stopped at traffic lights at the intersection of Kings Avenue and Macquarie Street in Barton on 16 June 2016.

While stopped, a Honda Civic hit the back of a Holden Astra parked behind her and the force of the impact pushed the Astra into her van.

She claimed she was flung forward, then immediately jolted backwards due to the seat belt restraint and suffered several injuries to her back.

No one had to be taken to hospital after the crash, and Ms Marhaba continued driving, but she had a pre-existing back injury from two prior car accidents, which she claimed had been aggravated by this incident.

Ms Marhaba sued Zheng Chen, who owned the Civic but had not been driving at the time, and his third-party insurer, AAI Limited, trading as GIO Insurance, in the ACT Supreme Court.

In her decision from Friday (26 July), Justice Verity McWilliam said the defendants admitted a breach of a duty of care, but denied that the accident injured Ms Marhaba, arguing that the force of the impact between the Astra and Volkswagen was minor and not enough to cause her injuries. They also contested the extent of the loss claimed.

Justice McWilliam said while the low-impact circumstances of the collision meant any severe physical injury to her head, neck, or back was unlikely, it was not the case that no injury at all was possible, particularly if she had residual symptoms from previous trauma.

But when discussing claimed back and neck injuries, she also said: “The low impact of the accident points to injuries being only of a temporary nature, and that is consistent with the medical evidence confirming that any nerve impingement was temporary”.

She also said the medical evidence was that any mild concussion was temporary.

Justice McWilliam said Ms Marhaba was entitled to compensation for a neck injury, which has since resolved, and its associated headaches, as well as the exacerbation of her back injury and the development of somatic symptom disorder.

“Here, I am proceeding on the basis that the injuries sustained in the accident substantially aggravated the pain that the plaintiff was experiencing due to her previous motor vehicle accidents,” she said.

“Further, because of those accidents and her underlying degenerative condition, that aggravation has now been overtaken and is now subsumed in the trajectory of the plaintiff’s spinal degeneration.

“The plaintiff has been successful in recovering damages, although in a lesser sum than that sought.”

She awarded Ms Marhaba $155,524 and told the defendants to pay her legal costs.