Psychological Injuries Accepted and Award Restored on Appeal - Saadati v. Moorhead, [2017] 1 SCR 543, 2017 SCC 28 (CanLII)

April 26, 2019, Kitchener, Ontario

Posted by: Robert Deutschmann, Personal Injury Lawyer

Mohsen Saadati Appellant v Grant Iain Moorhead, Able Leasing (2001) Ltd. and
Thi Hao Hoang Respondents

SUPREME COURT OF CANADA

Date of Decision: June 2, 2017
Heard Before: McLachlin C.J. and Abella, Moldaver, Karakatsanis, Wagner, Gascon, Côté, Brown and Rowe JJ.

PSYCHOLOGICAL INJURY: Did it occur; motor vehicle accident; mental injury; damages; appellant awarded damages for mental injury based on testimony of witness rather than on expert evidence; does recovery for mental injury require expert evidence or other proof of recognized psychiatric illness;

Background:

S’s tractor‑truck was struck by a vehicle driven by M. This accident was the second in a series of five motor vehicle collisions involving S. S had suffered chronic pain since the first accident, which was later aggravated by the third accident. S sued M and the other defendants in negligence, seeking damages for non‑pecuniary loss and past income loss arising from the second accident. The trial judge found that the second accident caused S psychological injuries, including personality change and cognitive difficulties. This finding did not rest on an identified medical cause or expert evidence but was based on the testimony of S’s friends and family to the effect that S’s personality had changed for the worse after the accident. The trial judge further found that the mental injury originally caused by the second accident was indivisible from any injury caused by the third accident and awarded S $100,000 for non‑pecuniary damages. The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal on the ground that S had not demonstrated by expert evidence a medically recognized psychiatric or psychological injury. It also observed that the trial judge had erred by deciding the case on a basis neither pleaded nor argued by S.

The respondents collectively admitted liability for the accident but took the position that the appellant suffered no damage. Expert evidence was tendered on behalf of the appellant to support his claim of an injury resulting from the accident, much of which the trial judge ruled inadmissible.

Issues:

The trial judge’s award for mental injury was not made in breach of procedural fairness. While cases should not be decided on grounds not raised, in claims for negligently caused mental injury, it is generally sufficient that the pleadings allege some form of such injury. The many allegations of mental injury in S’s oral and written closing submissions, combined with the broad heads of damage alleged in the pleadings, provided ample notice to the defendants of the case which they had to answer, and they did not object to these allegations.

Recovery for mental injury in negligence law depends upon the claimant satisfying the criteria applicable to any successful action in negligence: a duty of care, a breach, damage, and a legal and factual causal relationship between the breach and the damage. Canadian negligence law recognizes that a duty exists at common law to take reasonable care to avoid causing foreseeable mental injury, and that this cause of action protects a right to be free from negligent interference with one’s mental health. The ordinary duty of care analysis is therefore to be applied to claims for negligently caused mental injury. In particular, liability for mental injury must be confined to claims which satisfy the proximity analysis within the duty of care framework and the remoteness inquiry.

A finding of legally compensable mental injury need not rest, in whole or in part, on the claimant proving a recognized psychiatric injury. The law of negligence accords identical treatment to mental and physical injury. Requiring claimants who allege mental injury to prove that their condition meets the threshold of recognizable psychiatric illness, while not imposing a corresponding requirement upon claimants alleging physical injury to show that their condition carries a certain classificatory label, would accord unequal protection to victims of mental injury. Distinct rules which operate to preclude liability in cases of mental injury, but not in cases of physical injury, should not be erected. The elements of the cause of action of negligence, together with the threshold stated in Mustapha v. Culligan of Canada Ltd., 2008 SCC 27 (CanLII), [2008] 2 S.C.R. 114, for proving mental injury, furnish a sufficiently robust array of protections against unworthy claims.

Furthermore, confining compensable mental injury to conditions that are identifiable with reference to psychiatric diagnostic tools is inherently suspect as a matter of legal methodology. While, for treatment purposes, an accurate diagnosis is obviously important, a trier of fact adjudicating a claim of mental injury is not concerned with diagnosis, but with symptoms and their effects. There is no necessary relationship between reasonably foreseeable mental injury and a diagnostic classification scheme. A negligent defendant need only be shown to have foreseen injury, and not a particular psychiatric illness that comes with its own label. The trier of fact’s inquiry should be directed to the level of harm that the claimant’s particular symptoms represent, not to whether a label could be attached to them.

To establish mental injury, claimants must show that the disturbance is serious and prolonged and rises above the ordinary annoyances, anxieties and fears that come with living in civil society. Expert evidence can assist in determining whether or not a mental injury has been shown, but where a psychiatric diagnosis is unavailable, it remains open to a trier of fact to find on other evidence adduced by the claimant that he or she has proven on a balance of probabilities the occurrence of mental injury. It also remains open to the defendant, in rebutting a claim, to call expert evidence establishing that the accident cannot have caused any mental injury, or at least any mental injury known to psychiatry.

In the instant case, the trial judge accepted evidence that clearly showed a serious and prolonged disruption that transcended ordinary emotional upset or distress. These findings have not been challenged and are entitled to appellate deference. There is no legal error in the trial judge’s treatment of the evidence of S’s symptoms as supporting a finding of mental injury, even in the absence of expert testimony associating them with an identified condition.

It would not be just in the circumstances to remand this matter to the Court of Appeal on the questions of indivisible injury and the damage award. The indivisibility of two injuries is a finding of fact, which is entitled to deference. In addition, without full submissions and a pertinent lower court record, this is not an appropriate case to decide the effect of workers’ compensation legislation on the divisibility of injuries. Similarly, the trial judge’s damage award is reasonable, supported by the record, and fairly compensates S’s loss. It should therefore be restored.

Results:

The appeal should be allowed and the trial judge’s award restored.

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