Tag: Brechin v. Pickering

As the BC Court of Appeal recently confirmed, it is not ‘wage loss‘ that is compensible in a personal injury lawsuit but rather ‘diminished earning capacity‘.  With this in mind it is important to remember that damages for diminished capacity can be available in circumstances where there is no past wage loss and even in cases where a Plaintiff’s earnings increase following a collision.  Reasons for judgement were released this week by the BC Supreme Court, Nelson Registry, with such a result.
In this week’s case (Brechin v. Pickering) the Plaintiff was injured in a 2007 collision.  Liability was admitted focusing the trial on an assessment of damages.  The Plaintiff suffered various soft tissue injuries to his neck, knee and shoulder.  He worked as an electrician and took ‘very little time off‘.  In addition to this the Plaintiff’s earnings increased in the years following the collision as follows:
[52]  Mr. Bredin’s work history since 2002, shows the following pattern:
2002  $49,991
2003  $29,917
2004  $23,866
2005  $64,256
2006  $40,059
2007  $68,986
2008  $84,142
2009  $80,255
2010  $99,802
The Plaintiff’s injuries were expected to linger and although he could continue to work in his own occupation he was limited in tasks ‘at the heavier end of the scale‘.  As a result the Court awarded damages for diminished earning capacity.  In doing so Mr. Justice McEwan provided the following reasons:
[78]  What emerges from Ms. Mihalynuk’s evidence is a portrait of a person who is rather self-contained, proud of his work and inclined to do very little on his time off..
[80]  Mr. Brechin is now 42 years old in a setting in which he may retire in 15 to 20 years.  There are significant physical demands in the work some of the time, although as he continues to take leadership roles, he is likely to work more often at a reduced physical level of strain.  The primary concern for his future is whether he will be able to continue to retirement without interference from the effects of the accident…
[83]  I accept that work at the heavier end of the scale ought to be avoided, and that he could probably not stay in an occupation that demanded continuous heavy labour.  In the field in which he is employed, however, this does not appear to be expected.
[99]  The possibility of a future event is not specifically that Mr. Brechin will be laid off because of his condition, which is relatively unlikely, given that the medical evidence suggests that his condition is not disabling, but the more general vagaries of business that have made employment “for life”, once a common expectation, highly uncertain.  Should Mr. Brechin lose his position for such a reason he would be put back into a competitive environment where a fraction of the heaviest work would be lost to him…
[100] In this case, that involves a consideration of the medical evidence; Mr. Brechin’s age and likely working life; the relative stability of his employment at Fortis; the possibility that either Mr. Brechin’s condition, or larger workplace and market forces will change his situation, and the prospects he could have were that to happen.  It seems clear that Mr. Brechin could work but that to some extent this range of opportunities would be limited at the heavier end of the work.  The degree to which this is attributable to the accident diminishes over time as age and other factors come into play.  I think it would be an error to assume the same capacity for heavy work in a 50 year old, that one would find in someone significantly younger.  Doing the best I can to assess these factors, I fix $60,000 for future loss of income due to the diminishment of his capacity viewed as a capital asset.  I have done so, bearing in mind his present income earning capacity, which is an improvement over the years before the accident, but that the injuries suffered in the accident may reduce, somewhat, his broader opportunities to work as an electrician.