General Damages for Vision Loss and Eye Injuries

General damages for vision loss compensate a permanent sensory loss that reaches into every hour of the day. Courts assess the measured loss of acuity and field, then assess what the remaining vision will not do. Total blindness sits among the most serious injuries the law recognises and is valued near the top of the range. This chapter states how the assessment works below that extreme.

Loss of One Eye Is More Than Half a Loss

A claimant who loses one eye usually retains good acuity on the other, so the letter chart understates the injury badly. What goes is depth perception and a large part of the peripheral field, which affects driving, ladder work and anything requiring judgment of distance. Courts also compensate the permanent anxiety about the surviving eye, since the claimant now has no spare. Where the eye is removed or visibly damaged, the cosmetic component is assessed as well, on the same principles courts apply to permanent visible scarring.

The Measurements Courts Rely On

Visual acuity, visual field testing and, where relevant, evidence of double vision or light sensitivity form the objective core. An ophthalmologist speaks to permanence and to whether further surgery would help. Where the injury caused a traumatic cataract, a retinal detachment, corneal scarring or glaucoma years later, the future risk is compensable if the evidence puts it above speculation. Photophobia and double vision are frequently the symptoms that end a claimant’s ability to work, even where acuity reads well.

General Damages for Vision Loss Follow the Working Life It Changes

The functional approach asks what the injury took away from this claimant. A driver who can no longer hold a licence and a machinist who can no longer judge tolerances are compensated for different things. Courts also look at age and at whether the claimant can adapt, since adaptation reduces the loss without eliminating it. Reported eye injury awards in Atlantic Canada cover a broad range depending on those factors, and the decisions are published on CanLII.

Eye Injuries Alongside Head Trauma

Vision problems after a head injury are often neurological rather than ocular, and the treatment path is different. Convergence problems and visual disturbance overlap heavily with the balance symptoms in the vestibular injuries chapter, and the two are commonly assessed together. Eye injuries also arise from workplace incidents, assaults and dog attacks, and the firm handles those dog bite claims across the Atlantic provinces. The guide’s opening chapter explains how the series is arranged.