General Damages for Older Plaintiffs

General damages for older plaintiffs are assessed on the same principles as any other claim, with two facts pulling in opposite directions. A shorter remaining life expectancy means fewer years of suffering to compensate. An injury in later life can also take away more of what is left, because independence is harder to replace at eighty than at thirty.

Age Shortens the Period but Not the Principle

The functional approach asks what sum will provide solace for the loss this person suffers. If a permanent injury will be endured for ten years rather than fifty, the award reflects that. Courts do not treat an older plaintiff’s suffering as worth less per year than anyone else’s. The method is the one set out in how courts assess general damages.

Loss of Independence Raises General Damages for Older Plaintiffs

For an older plaintiff the practical consequences of an injury are often severe out of proportion to its medical grade. A hip fracture that ends the ability to live alone changes the whole of the remaining years. Courts treat the loss of independence as a substantial component of the award, and the loss of enjoyment of life chapter covers how that loss is proved.

Degeneration Is Almost Always in Issue

Imaging on an older plaintiff will nearly always show degenerative change, and the defence will say the symptoms come from that rather than from the accident. The answer is evidence of function before and after, not the radiology report on its own. The pre-existing conditions chapter sets out how much of a reduction a genuine pre-existing condition earns.

Slower Recovery Makes Injuries Permanent

An injury a young person would recover from can become permanent in an older person, which raises rather than lowers the award. Medical evidence about the expected course of recovery in an older patient is often what decides the assessment. Reported Atlantic decisions involving older plaintiffs are searchable on CanLII.

Where These Claims Come From

Older plaintiffs appear most often in pedestrian accident and trip and fall claims, where a fall that would bruise a younger person breaks a hip. The firm works those files with no fee unless the claim resolves.