Mental injury

Appellant suffered chronic pain due to the accident and sued the defendant in negligence, seeking damages for non-pecuniary loss (including mental injury)

Trial judge found that the accident caused the appellant psychological injuries, including personality change and cognitive difficulties such as slowed speech, leading to a deterioration of his close personal relationships with his family and friends

Such finding did not rest on an identified medical cause or expert evidence, but was based on the testimony of appellant's friends and family to the effect that his personality had changed for the worse after the accident

Legality

Said findings of the trial judge had not been challenged by the defence, and, as findings of fact, they were entitled to appellate deference, absent palpable and overriding error

Trial judge accepted evidence that clearly showed a serious and prolonged disruption that transcended ordinary emotional upset or distress

Trial judge committed no legal error in treating evidence of appellant's symptoms as supporting a finding of mental injury, even in the absence of expert testimony associating them with an identified condition, thus, what mattered was the substance, i.e. the symptoms and not the label of the mental injury

Award of damages by the trial judge for mental injury caused to the appellant was reasonable, supported by the record, and fairly compensated appellant's loss

Appeal was allowed accordingly.

Finding of legally compensable mental injury need not rest, in whole or in part, on the claimant proving a recognized psychiatric injury

Law of negligence accorded identical treatment to mental and physical injury

Requiring claimants who alleged mental injury to prove that their condition met the threshold of recognizable psychiatric illness, while not imposing a corresponding requirement upon claimants alleging physical injury to show that their condition carried a certain classificatory label, would accord unequal protection to victims of mental injury

Distinct rules which operated to preclude liability in cases of mental injury, but not in cases of physical injury, should not be erected

Elements of the cause of action of negligence, together with the threshold for proving mental injury, furnished a sufficiently robust array of protections against unworthy claims

Furthermore, confining compensable mental injury to conditions that were identifiable with reference to psychiatric diagnostic tools was inherently suspect as a matter of legal methodology

While, for treatment purposes, an accurate diagnosis was obviously important, a judge adjudicating a claim of mental injury was not concerned with diagnosis, but with symptoms and their effects

No necessary relationship existed between reasonably foreseeable mental injury and a diagnostic classification scheme

Negligent defendant need only be shown to have foreseen injury, and not a particular psychiatric illness that came with its own label.