General Damages for Fractures and Broken Bones

General damages for fractures turn on how the bone healed rather than on how it broke. A clean break in a long bone that unites in eight weeks and leaves nothing behind is valued modestly. A fracture through a joint surface, one that needed permanent hardware, or one that never united properly is a different claim. This chapter states the factors courts weigh.

Joint Involvement Changes the Value of a Fracture

A break that runs into the surface of a knee, ankle, wrist or shoulder damages cartilage that does not regenerate. Courts treat those fractures as carrying a real risk of post traumatic arthritis, which means the claimant is being compensated for pain expected decades ahead as well as pain already suffered. An orthopaedic surgeon willing to say that arthritis is probable rather than possible moves the award, because a probable future consequence is compensable while a speculative one is not.

Hardware, Non Union and Repeat Surgery

Plates, screws, rods and pins left in the body are permanent, and many are removed in a second operation that carries its own pain and its own scar. A fracture that fails to unite, or unites in the wrong position, leads to further surgery and sometimes to bone grafting. Each additional operation lengthens the period of disability the award has to cover. Courts also compensate the permanent restriction hardware imposes, such as a wrist that no longer rotates fully or an ankle that aches in cold weather.

General Damages for Fractures Depend on the Life Interrupted

The same tibia fracture is worth more to a roofer than to someone who works seated, and more to a competitive athlete than to someone who did not run. This is not a judgment about whose life matters, it is the functional approach applied to the evidence. The award compensates what the injury took away, so proof of what the claimant did before the break is as important as proof of the break. Reported fracture awards in the Atlantic provinces span a wide range for that reason, and the decisions sit on CanLII.

Fractures Alongside Other Injuries

Multiple fractures are not simply added together. A judge assesses the claimant as a whole and sets one figure for all non pecuniary loss, so a person with a broken pelvis, a broken wrist and abdominal trauma receives one award instead of a separate figure for each injury. The internal component is covered in the internal injuries chapter, and crush injuries that end in surgical removal of a limb are covered in the amputation chapter. The firm handles fracture claims from motorcycle accident files across Atlantic Canada, and the guide’s opening chapter sets out the rest of the series.