Thursday, April 18, 2019

New Book: Personal Injury Tables Hong Kong 2019: Tables for the Calculation of Damages, 5th edn ("Chan Tables")

Personal Injury Tables Hong Kong 2019: Tables for the Calculation of Damages, 5th edn
Neville Sarony, Wai-sum Chan, Felix W H Chan, Johnny S H Li
Sweet and Maxwell,
April 2019
Description: Continually cited in Hong Kong Courts as the “Chan Tables”, they are the authoritative and court-approved tables and provide the definitive starting point for all calculations for personal injury compensation claims in Hong Kong.
“I agree that the Chan Tables should be accepted as the starting point in Hong Kong…” 
  Justice Bharwaney, Chan Pak Ting (No.1) [2012] 1 HKCFI 1584; [2013] 1 HKLRD 643
Personal Injury Tables Hong Kong 2019 updates and revises the essential reference information for calculating damages in personal injury and fatal accident cases. The 2019 edition has been fully updated to take into account revised Hong Kong mortality projections by the Census and Statistics Department (Hong Kong Life Tables 2018-2066 and Hong Kong Population Projections 2017–2066), under which there is an increase in life expectancy. 
     Evaluating damages is no longer a time-consuming and challenging task. Its comprehensive contents include Hong Kong actuarial tables for the calculation of: 
  • Inflationary rates for adjusting PSLA
  • Wage statistics
  • Retail price indices
“The quantification of damages in personal injury cases is not an exact science. Indeed Lord Bridge observed that it will never be so, and explained how the common law courts have been “traditionally mistrustful of reliance on actuarial tables”: Hunt v Severs [1994] 2 AC 350, 365. Lord Pearson placed more trust in the experience of practitioners and judges than relying on tables, as otherwise there would be “a false appearance of accuracy and precision in a sphere where conjectural estimates have to play a large part”: Taylor v O ‘Connor [1971] AC 115, 140. 
These days of judicial skepticism against mathematics and actuarial science are bygone.  It is now clear that our very own Chan Tables, much like the Ogden Tables in England, have become an indispensable part and the starting point of our law in this area (Chan Pak Ting v Chan Chi Kuen [2013] 1 HKLRD 634, [32]), and rightly so. As required by modern standards of civil justice, Hong Kong law now demands greater consistency, predictability, and efficiency in all types of cases. This need is particularly felt in personal injuries cases by reason of their very nature. Tables like the present publication assist greatly in achieving this goal. 
It is noteworthy that the Law Reform Commission’s recent consultation on periodical payments for future pecuniary loss could ultimately lead to some interesting changes in this area of law, and, perhaps, the role and the complexity of the future editions of this work. 
Whatever murky waters that may lie ahead, the general editor and the contributors should be congratulated again for their arduous work thus far, and their efforts to keep this valuable work up to date and relevant for practitioners and the courts alike.” 
  Andrew Cheung, Permanent Judge of the Court of Final Appeal, February 2019
About the Authors: Felix W H Chan is an associate professor in the Faculty of Law, the University of Hong Kong. Neville Sarony QC, SC is a respected and experienced personal injury practitioner in Hong Kong. Wai-Sum Chan is a Professor of Finance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Johnny SH Li is a Professor of Actuarial Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and a Professor of Actuarial Science at the University of Waterloo, Canada.

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