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Stewart v Metro North Hospital and Health Service

[2025] HCA 34
Judgment date
Case number
B10/2025
Before
Gageler CJ, Gordon, Edelman, Jagot, Beech-Jones JJ
Catchwords

Damages – Assessment – Tort – Personal injury – Where appellant suffered personal injuries arising from his treatment as patient at hospital operated by respondent – Where prior to injury appellant lived in his own home with his brother where his son and dogs could stay – Where after injury appellant transferred to nursing home – Where appellant's physical condition deteriorated because of lack of therapy and exercise – Whether reasonable for damages awarded to appellant to include component for medical and nursing care and treatment in own home – Whether assessment of reasonableness confined to balancing only health benefits against cost.

Words and phrases – "assessment of damages", "assessment of reasonableness", "care at home", "compensation", "compensatory principle", "cost of home care", "cost of nursing and medical care", "costs of future care", "extreme brain injury", "general damages", "health benefits", "home care", "home or in a home setting", "injury scale", "institution or in an institutional setting", "institutional care", "matters of amenities", "mitigation of loss", "nursing and medical expenses", "onus", "other matters", "pain, suffering and loss of amenities of life", "proof of loss", "quantum", "reasonable", "reasonableness", "reasonably incurred", "repair the consequences of the tort", "unreasonably refused".

Civil Liability Act 2003 (Qld), ss 61, 62.

Civil Liability Regulation 2014 (Qld), Sch 3, Pt 2, Sch 4.