$175,000 Non-Pecuniary Assessment for Mild Traumatic Brain Injury and Chronic Pain

Adding to this site’s archived cases addressing damages for traumatic brain injury, reasons for judgement, reasons for judgement were released today by the BC Supreme Court, Vancouver Registry, assessing damages for a mild traumatic brain injury and chronic pain.
In today’s case (Mayer v. Umabao) the Plaintiff was involved in a 2012 collision.  Liability was disputed but the Court found the Defendant fully at fault for the collision.
The Plaintiff sustained a mild traumatic brain injury and suffered from cognitive dysfunction.  The court found some of this dysfunction was due to the head injury and the rest due to chronic pain and other factors also linked to the crash.  In assessing non-pecuniary damages at $175,000 Madam Justice Young provided the following reasons:

[246]     I am satisfied on the basis of Dr. Chahal’s evidence and Dr. Krywaniuk’s evidence that Mr. Mayer did suffer some trauma to the left side of his head resulting in vestibular difficulties and symptoms of a mTBI. The trauma may have been caused by an acceleration/ deceleration trauma or it may have been caused by a blow to the left side of his head. I find most convincing Dr. Krywaniuk’s evidence. If there was damage to the left vestibular apparatus at the accident then it is likely that the adjacent area of the brain also suffered some trauma. The adjacent area of the brain is the area of the brain that moderates receptive language input where Mr. Mayer reports he has difficulty.

[247]     Having said that, however, I find that the brain injury was quite mild and only affected higher level speech and executive functioning or the ability to multitask. I come to this conclusion because I believe that if the mTBI symptoms were more than very mild, they would have been picked up by Dr. Koss who I find to be a very thorough and careful practitioner who has special training in the area of concussions. The symptoms of brain injury became apparent at work and when judging wine. The irritability, personality changes and memory loss are more likely caused by the long term effects of pain, sleeplessness, anxiety and Mr. Mayer’s somatoform disorder…

[253]     On balance of all of the evidence, I find that the vestibular injury, mTBI and somatoform disorder were caused by the accident and all of them are compensable…

[270]     There are many obvious similarities between these cases relied on by the plaintiffs and the Mayer case, however, I find that the cases relied on by Mr. Mayer’s counsel involve more significant brain injuries which were readily apparent because of the dramatic effect it had on the plaintiffs. Mr. Mayer’s brain injury was more subtle and went undetected for a considerable period of time because of his ability to function. Nonetheless he is a changed man and he has suffered a considerable loss in his enjoyment of life, family, friends, social interests and vocational interests. I conclude that Mr. Mayer is entitled to an award of non‑pecuniary damages in the amount of $175,000.