1 On 11 November 2019, Mr Mark Anthony Kirk Doney (“Mr Doney”) was cycling along Nicoll Drive when he was involved in a tragic accident with a truck (“Accident”). The truck was driven by the first defendant, who was under the employment of the second defendant at the time. Mr Doney did not survive the Accident and succumbed to his injuries four days later on 14 November 2019. On 21 September 2021, the plaintiffs, as Mr Doney’s dependents, commenced this action against the first and second defendants seeking damages as a result of Mr Doney’s death.

2 Following a trial on liability, I found that the first defendant was wholly liable for the accident, and the second defendant vicariously liable for the first defendant’s negligence: Chia June Theo Grace (alias Xie Yunzhen) Mrs Grace Doney v Selvakumar Ranjan [2023] SGHC 117 (“Grace Chia (Liability)”) at [98]. The defendants appealed my decision on liability to the Appellate Division of the High Court – that appeal was heard and dismissed on 6 February 2024. The matter then proceeded to the assessment of the plaintiffs’ damages, which was also heard by me.

3 This judgment deals with the assessment of damages sought by the plaintiffs. The sums due are heavily contested. The plaintiffs seek more than S$4 million in damages, while the defendants have argued for a range of around S$700,000–S$800,000. ¹ Many points have been taken as to the soundness of the calculations tendered by each party’s expert and in many respects, the assessment of damages was a battle between the experts. Novel issues have also been raised, including whether it is possible to claim damages representing moneys or the monetary equivalent of assets which the plaintiffs say would have been willed by Mr Doney to them exclusively if Mr Doney had not passed away as a result of the Accident. This case may also be, as far as I am aware, the first time the court has had to grapple with the application of the actuarial tables as set out in Hauw Soo Hoon et al, Actuarial Tables with Explanatory Notes for use in Personal Injury and Death Claims (Academy Publishing, 2021) (the “PIRC Tables”) to certain heads of claims advanced by the plaintiffs as Mr Doney’s dependants.

4 As the background facts relating to the Accident may be found in Grace Chia (Liability), I will not repeat them here.

5 Mr Doney was an Australian born on 31 January 1964. He was 55 years old at the time of his death. ² At the time of his passing, Mr Doney was a freelance visual effects (“VFX”) artist. He registered his business as a sole proprietorship in Singapore under the name “Postman” and started freelancing proper in 2012. ³

6 The first plaintiff (“Mrs Doney”) is the lawful widow of Mr Doney. She is a Singaporean born on 9 August 1979 and is currently aged 46 (and was 40 years old at the time of Mr Doney’s passing). Mrs Doney met Mr Doney in late 2006 in Australia, and shortly thereafter they became a couple who “travelled and lived between Singapore and Australia”. ⁴ They married in Singapore on 7 August 2009. ⁵ There are three children of the marriage, and they are the second, third, and fourth plaintiffs respectively: ⁶

7 At the time of Mr Doney’s passing, the family stayed in a rented house at 4 Loyang Rise, Singapore 507597. ⁷

8 Mr Doney had four adult children (“Adult Children”) from two previous marriages: ⁸

9 The Adult Children reside outside Singapore and are not parties to these proceedings, but they do feature in some of the background facts. ⁹

10 Mr Doney passed away without making a will. Mrs Doney’s position is that his intention, expressed when he was alive, had been to leave everything to the plaintiffs. I will deal with this contention at a more appropriate juncture later in this judgment, but for now, it suffices to note that Mr Doney’s estate (in both Australia and Singapore) was ultimately distributed through the intestacy regime. ¹⁰

11 Mr Doney had a small estate in Singapore, and this was subsequently administered by the Public Trustee. His estate here consisted mostly of monies in his Central Provident Fund (“CPF”) account and an old motorcycle. The CPF monies were distributed to the plaintiffs and the Adult Children, and the motorcycle went to Mrs Doney. ¹¹ For completeness, there was initially some question over whether Mrs Doney had failed to disclose to the Public Trustee the existence of certain sums which Mr Doney had in his DBS Corporate Multi-Currency Account number ending with 1577 (the “Postman Account”). ¹² But this point has not been pursued and appears to be no longer in issue. ¹³

12 Most of Mr Doney’s assets were in Australia, where the situation is somewhat more complicated. Upon application by Monique (the second of the Adult Children), she was appointed the sole administratrix of Mr Doney’s estate. ¹⁴ Mrs Doney states that she was advised to file for Letters of Administration in Australia, ¹⁵ but it is unclear from the evidence before me if this was done. Instead, what is in evidence is that Mrs Doney filed a Family Provision claim to obtain a larger share of Mr Doney’s Australian estate but this was ultimately rejected by the relevant court in Queensland, Australia and Mrs Doney was ordered to pay costs. ¹⁶

13 Pursuant to the distribution schedule exhibited in Mrs Doney’s affidavit of evidence-in-chief (“AEIC”), ¹⁷ it appears that Mr Doney had slightly more than A$1.1 million in his estate at the time of his death. The biggest component of the estate was a property Mr Doney owned at 182 Weller Road, Tarragindi, Queensland 4121 (the “Australian Property”), which was sold by Monique for a contract price of A$900,000. ¹⁸ Of this, the estate received the sum of A$877,836.97 as the net sale proceeds (after deducting the associated sale costs). ¹⁹ The second biggest component of Mr Doney’s estate was funds derived from Mr Doney’s National Australia Bank Account number ending 1004 (the “NAB Account”), amounting to A$238,307.38. ²⁰

14 An Australian law firm, Barry Nilsson, assisted with the distribution of Mr Doney’s estate. The estate was distributed on the basis that immovable assets would be subject to the provisions of Queensland’s intestacy law, while moveable assets (ie, monies in bank accounts) would be distributed according to Singapore’s intestacy law. ²¹ Under Queensland law, Mrs Doney would receive A$150,000 (and household chattels) from the estate, after which the remainder would be split one-third in Mrs Doney’s favour, with the remaining two-thirds distributed equally amongst all of Mr Doney’s seven children (ie, the second to fourth plaintiffs and the Adult Children): see Succession Act 1981 (Qld) ss 35, 36A, read with Sch 2, Part 1. ²² Under Singapore law, Mrs Doney would receive half of Mr Doney’s estate, with the remaining half split equally amongst all of Mr Doney’s children: see s 7 of the Intestate Succession Act 1967 (2020 Rev Ed), Rules 2 and 3.

15 Pursuant to the distribution schedule prepared by Barry Nilsson, after deducting the various legal and administrative fees, it appears that the plaintiffs ultimately stood to receive A$483,946.45 for Mrs Doney, and A$76,761.76 for each of the three children, giving rise to a total of A$714,231.73 – of which, based on the schedule, A$102,934.60 was deducted as a result of cost orders made against Mrs Doney, and a further A$21,006.42 for moneys withdrawn from Mr Doney’s account(s) after his passing. ²³

16 The plaintiffs called a total of 15 witnesses for the assessment of damages hearing. Out of these, the AEICs of eight witnesses were agreed by the defendants to be admitted into evidence without the need for them to attend the hearing as the defendants had no questions to raise with them in cross-examination. ²⁴ These witnesses were:

(a) Russell Barry Matthews, a property consultant located in Australia who Mr Doney had contacted sometime in March 2019. ²⁵

(b) Yeo Soo Teck Freddie, the current Chief Operating Officer of Infinite Frameworks Pte Ltd (“Infinite Frameworks”) (a media entertainment and creative services company in Singapore) and who had worked with Mr Doney over the years for various freelance projects; ²⁶

(c) Yeo Wen Chek, an employee at Infinite Frameworks who worked with Mr Doney; ²⁷

(d) Farquhar Struan Ernest Laurence, an employee with Edisen Singapore Pte Ltd (formerly known as Chimney Group Asia Pacific), who had worked with Mr Doney when he was engaged for various freelance projects; ²⁸

(e) Scott Edward Doney (“Mr Scott Doney”), Mr Doney’s older brother; ²⁹

(f) Peter David Tresize, Mr Doney’s friend and a fellow VFX artist; ³⁰

(g) Sariyanti Binte Sannie, an Executive Producer at SixToes who had previously worked with Mr Doney; ³¹ and

(h) Timothy Philip Baier, a VFX artist and Mr Doney’s mentee. ³²

17 I heard evidence from the following remaining seven witnesses:

(a) Mrs Doney;

(b) Mayo-Smith Richard Paul (“Mr Paul”), who at the time of Mr Doney’s passing was the Managing Director and Executive Producer of Heckler SG Pte Ltd (a VFX and post-production company), and who had experience working with Mr Doney; ³³

(c) Paul Andrew Stevens (“Mr Stevens”), Mr Doney’s industry colleague and friend; ³⁴

(d) Rufus Tara Lancelot Blackwell (“Mr Blackwell”), a freelance VFX artist who was Mr Doney’s mentee; ³⁵

(e) Thomas Scott William (“Mr William”), Mr Doney’s friend and ex-colleague – they had worked together at “Cutting Edge”, a post-production company, for about eight years from 2000 to 2008; ³⁶

(f) Haydn Thomas Evans (“Mr Evans”), an ex-Executive Producer at SixToes TV Pte Ltd (a production solutions company) who had contracted Mr Doney for his freelance work; ³⁷ and

(g) Iain Potter (“Mr Potter”), the plaintiffs’ expert witness. Mr Potter filed three expert reports in the course of these proceedings, which I will refer to as “POTTER1”, “POTTER2”, and “POTTER3” respectively. ³⁸ The plaintiffs also annexed two emails from Mr Potter at the end of their reply submissions containing further comments. ³⁹ POTTER1 is no longer relevant – Mrs Doney confirmed on the first day of trial that she was relying mainly on POTTER2; ⁴⁰ and Mr Potter also stated that because POTTER1 was “prepared without the benefit of a lot of the information”, he would consider it “as falling entirely by the wayside”. ⁴¹

18 The defendants called a single witness, who was their expert Tam Chee Chong (“Mr Tam”). Mr Tam filed two expert reports in these proceedings, which I will refer to as “TAM1” and “TAM2” respectively. ⁴² Mr Tam also provided additional comments to some of Mr Potter’s calculations – these were annexed to the defendants’ closing submissions and are referred to as “TAM3”. ⁴³ Mr Tam gave evidence concurrently with Mr Potter in the format colloquially known as “hot tubbing”.

19 The following claims have been agreed: ⁴⁴

(a) S$15,000 for bereavement. This claim arises pursuant to s 21 of the Civil Law Act 1909 (2020 Rev Ed) (“CLA”) and is for the benefit of Mrs Doney only: s 21(2)(a) of the CLA. The sum of S$15,000 is prescribed by statute: s 21(4) of the CLA.

(b) In respect of special damages:

(i) S$8,612.82 for medical expenses;

(ii) S$2,652.20 for cremation;

(iii) S$8,000 for personal effects; and

(iv) S$438.55 for Public Trustee fees.

20 Collectively, these agreed sums amount to S$34,703.57.

21 The following claims remain disputed and arise for my determination: ⁴⁵

22 Considering the number of issues that arise for my determination, I propose to adopt an issue-based approach, addressing each head of claim independently and considering the parties’ respective positions on that issue at the appropriate juncture.

23 I first begin by setting out some general principles that will underpin my assessment of damages in this case.

24 A dependency claim arises under s 20 of the CLA, which provides a right of action against the person who caused the death of a person, for the benefit of the deceased person’s dependants. There is no dispute in this case that Mrs Doney and her three children are all “dependants” within the meaning of the provision. Section 22 of the CLA is also relevant and it states:

25 The purpose of a dependency claim is to “compensate for loss which the depend[a]nt has incurred as a result of the death” [emphasis in original]: Hanson Ingrid Christina v Tan Puey Tze [2008] 1 SLR(R) 409 (“Christina Hanson”) at [31]. The relevant test is whether the dependant had a “reasonable expectation of pecuniary benefit”: Christina Hanson at [26] citing Gul Chandiram Mahtani v Chain Singh [1996] 1 SLR 154 (“Gul Chandiram Mahtani”). Prakash J (as she then was) observed that this is ordinarily done in two ways (Christina Hanson at [26]):

26 While both experts disagree on many aspects of the calculations, I consider that their general approach towards the dependency calculations remains similar. ⁴⁷ For present purposes, I consider it useful to set out the broad structure that I will adopt as a means of providing a base from which to address the disagreements between the experts and / or parties: ⁴⁸

(a) First, obtain Mr Doney’s gross income prior to the Accident.

(b) Second, project Mr Doney’s gross income over the years. This will require me to determine the rate (if any) at which his income would have increased over time.

(c) Third, calculate and deduct the applicable income tax and Central Provident Fund (“CPF”) contributions which would have been payable on Mr Doney’s projected income, in order to determine the net income he would have been expected to receive each year (ie, his expected “take home” income each year). In addition, estimate the amount which Mr Doney would have saved each year – after deducting his savings from his “take home” income, the balance would represent Mr Doney’s disposable income (for expenditure on himself and the plaintiffs). I note here that there does not appear to be any serious dispute between the parties over the figures to be used for income tax, CPF and savings.

(d) Fourth, determine the date at which the dependency will cease. The period from the date of the Accident to the date the dependency will cease is the “period of dependency”.

(e) Fifth, estimate the amount (from his disposable income) which Mr Doney would have spent on himself and the plaintiffs. The amount which Mr Doney would have been expected to spend on the plaintiffs each year is the amount of dependency the plaintiffs would have expected to receive per year (ie, the multiplicand).

(f) Sixth, apply the applicable discounts (ie, the multipliers) to the dependency amounts (ie, the multiplicand) to obtain the present value of each year’s loss.

(g) Lastly, add up the present value of each year’s loss for the duration of the period of dependency to obtain the total amount of dependency.

27 It will be apparent from this structure that both experts adopted a methodology akin to the percentage deduction method in this case. ⁴⁹ I am accordingly content to proceed on this common basis.

28 A “multiplier-multiplicand” approach is normally utilised to assess damages awarded for future earnings or expenses.

29 The “multiplicand” is the quantum of loss expected to be sustained over a period of time (eg, lost yearly income). The multiplicand is multiplied by a “multiplier”, which is a mathematical figure representing (a) the length of time over which the quantum of losses are to be sustained (eg, 20 years) and (b) a discount applied to account for (i) the accelerated receipt of a lump sum of expected future payments (ie, the present value of money), and (ii) the risk that these future payments may never materialise due to unexpected events (eg, early mortality) – what is often referred to as the “vicissitudes of life”: see generally, Quek Yen Fei Kenneth v Yeo Chye Huat [2017] 2 SLR 229 (“Kenneth Quek”) at [43]–[45], and [57].

30 A greater discount is generally applied when the expected period of future loss is longer. This is to reflect the “increased compounding of the effect of accelerated receipt, inflation, contingencies, and other vicissitudes of life” [emphasis in original]: Kenneth Quek at [63].

31 Since March 2021, the ascertainment of an appropriate multiplier has been greatly assisted by the availability of the PIRC Tables.

32 For cases conducted under the auspices of the Rules of Court (2014 Rev Ed), the court will refer to the PIRC Tables to determine an appropriate multiplier where the assessment of damages is heard on or after 1 April 2021, “unless the facts of the case and ends of justice dictate otherwise”:  Supreme Court Practice Directions 2013, para 159.

33 These assessment of damages proceedings were heard after 1 April 2021 and both parties have proceeded on the basis that the PIRC Tables should apply. I have accordingly referred to the PIRC Tables to assist me in ascertaining the appropriate multipliers in this case. Even so, the parties disagreed as to how the PIRC Tables should be used or interpreted in order to arrive at the appropriate multiplier for some of the heads of claim. I will address these disagreements in greater detail later in this judgment.

34 The first step in the methodology (at [26] above) is to consider and determine Mr Doney’s gross income.

35 The available evidence is unfortunately sparse. Mr Doney had only started maintaining proper records for his business from 2016 onwards and Mrs Doney provided what documents she could find in the form of bank statements, PayPal statements, invoices, and receipts. ⁵⁰ By matching these documents, Mr Potter obtained figures representing Mr Doney’s gross income for the years 2016 to 2019, and Mr Tam does not dispute the figures: ⁵¹

36 I also have the benefit of Notices of Assessment (“NOA”) issued by the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (“IRAS”) which Mr Doney had received in respect of income he had declared from 2016 to 2019 (corresponding to the Years of Assessment 2017 to 2020): ⁵²

37 Parties also appear to accept that the NOA figures for 2019 might be inaccurate because Mrs Doney had filed the income declaration in 2020 on Mr Doney’s behalf following his passing in November 2019. ⁵³ This was a contention raised by the plaintiffs and which was not objected to by the defendants. That said, in light of the findings I have made below at [49], the issue of the accuracy of Mr Doney’s NOAs falls by the wayside.

38 As is plainly evident from the two tables at [35] and [36], Mr Doney’s gross income as gleaned from his personal documents appears to be significantly more, sometimes almost double that declared to IRAS. Nonetheless, the defendants accept that the figures Mr Potter obtained represent Mr Doney’s gross income from 2016 to 2019 (ie, Mr Doney’s total annual revenue). ⁵⁴ Where the parties diverge is what effect to give to the stark difference between the figures obtained by Mr Potter’s matching exercise (at [35]) and those declared to IRAS (at [36]).

39 Mrs Doney’s explanation for the discrepancy is that, either a portion of Mr Doney’s income was not derived locally (and so was not taxable), or Mr Doney had simply under-declared his income to IRAS. In other words, the IRAS NOAs are not accurate depictions of Mr Doney’s actual total annual income. ⁵⁵ When Mrs Doney’s explanation was brought to his attention in cross-examination, Mr Tam accepted this was a possibility but pointed out that there was no evidence to support it. ⁵⁶

40 The defendants take the position that the difference must be on account of large business expenses, and so despite high revenues, Mr Doney’s actual (taxable) income must have been much lower. ⁵⁷ In support of this position, Mr Tam made the following points:

(a) There is no evidence that the “undeclared” income derives from income earned outside Singapore. ⁵⁸

(b) Foreign-sourced service income received in Singapore is still taxable unless the taxpayer meets the requirements for an exemption, and there is no evidence that Mr Doney met these requirements. ⁵⁹ Mr Tam referred me to the IRAS e-Tax Guide, “Tax Exemption for Foreign-Sourced Income” (4th Edn) (“e-Tax Guide”). ⁶⁰

(c) In the absence of evidence otherwise, it would not be unreasonable to assume that the difference in income was due to business expenses. ⁶¹

41 On the basis that the difference in declared income represents Mr Doney’s business expenses, Mr Tam assessed Mr Doney’s profit margin at between 53% to 57%, which the defendants say should be applied to his projected future earnings. The reason for this range is that Mr Tam sought to exclude Mr Doney’s 2017 income on the basis that it was an outlier (a point which I will deal with below). ⁶² Mr Tam’s calculations are reproduced below as “Figure 1”: ⁶³

42 To buttress their conclusion, the defendants further submit that because Mr Doney “worked out of his [Singapore] residence, rent for his home should also be accounted for as a business expense”. ⁶⁴ On their case, rent comprises approximately 20% of Mr Doney’s gross income, so his business expenses should be at least that amount. Needless to say, adopting the defendants’ estimation of business expenses at more than 50% would severely eat into Mr Doney’s projected earnings. Indeed, this disagreement over Mr Doney’s business expenses, and by extension, his expected profits, accounts for a large part of the divergence between the sums proffered by both parties (see above at [3]).

43 Unsurprisingly, the plaintiffs firmly disagree with the defendants’ position. Mrs Doney undertook a review of the “deposits and withdrawals” in Mr Doney’s Postman Account and derived a figure of approximately 6% as representing his average yearly operating expenses. ⁶⁵ The plaintiffs say that this figure is justified having regard to the following:

(a) Mr Doney operated “primarily from the offices of his clients, from home or on the set”. ⁶⁶

(b) The business had few overheads – the major expenses were tools such as Mr Doney’s computer set up and software subscriptions. ⁶⁷

(c) The computer set up of a VFX artist would only need to be replaced once every few years, and Mr Doney apparently received complimentary or discounted software regularly in exchange for his services. ⁶⁸

(d) Any additional costs “incurred by Mr Doney directly for hiring freelancers was rare and negligible”. ⁶⁹

(e) In relation to the defendants’ argument that rental should be factored in as a business expense, the plaintiffs submit that the residence was primarily a home for the Doney family and Mr Doney’s use of the residence was merely incidental. ⁷⁰ Further, Mr Paul’s evidence was that in the period right before his passing Mr Doney had been working from the office of Mr Paul’s company. ⁷¹

(f) Lastly, such a high percentage of operating costs (as suggested by Mr Tam) would not be consistent with Mrs Doney’s evidence that the family’s expenses (excluding Mr Doney’s) amounted to approximately S$9,400 per month. ⁷²

44 Before addressing the other points, I would say that I am hesitant about placing weight on this last point made by the plaintiffs. To say that because the family was spending so much per month, Mr Doney must have earned a substantially larger sum is to place the cart before the horse – as Mr Tam points out, the Doney family may have had to dig into their savings in order to sustain their expenditure. ⁷³

45 That said, I find myself broadly in agreement with the plaintiffs on the issue of Mr Doney’s gross income. I am prepared to accept the defendants’ argument that Mrs Doney’s calculation of 6% for business expenses might be subjective, ⁷⁴ or even self-interested (even if unconsciously so). However, I am unable to agree with Mr Tam’s suggestion that Mr Doney’s business was generating operating expenses in the region of more than 50% of gross income. I cannot ignore the nature of Mr Doney’s business. It was a home-based, software-heavy business. Mr Doney had no permanent staff under his employ. While he did on occasion engage freelancers to assist him, that did not incur significant costs (see above at [43(d)]). The available evidence shows that Mr Doney’s biggest expense was his computer set up, which was not a recurring expenditure – only one S$15,000 purchase was identified between 2016 to 2019. ⁷⁵ I accept that the plaintiffs are the only ones capable of providing any evidence to the contrary, but even accounting for some level of self-interest, there is no suggestion that Mr Doney’s expenses were anywhere near the level suggested by Mr Tam.

46 I also reject the defendants’ submission that rental should be factored into Mr Doney’s business expenses. As the plaintiffs point out (and I do not think it can be seriously disputed), rental was paid on the residence primarily to provide a home for the family. ⁷⁶ Without saying any more than I need to on tax law (on which I did not have the benefit of submissions), the expenditure on rent would likely not have been deductible as a business expense as it was not “wholly and exclusively” incurred for the production of income: see ss 14(1), 15(1)(b) and 15(1)(f) of the Income Tax Act 1947 (2020 Rev Ed); NE v Comptroller of Income Tax [2006] SGHC 199 at [10] (the purpose of the expenditure is relevant to whether an expense was wholly and exclusively incurred in the production of income).

47 Against these observations there is also no basis for assuming that the difference in declared income should be chalked down to operating expenses. For a start, I cannot accept Mr Tam’s opinion that Mr Doney might have had to pay tax on his foreign-sourced income as conclusive (see [40(b)] above). Mr Tam was not giving evidence as an expert on Singapore tax law, nor is he legally trained. While Mr Tam did refer me to the e-Tax Guide, an e-Tax Guide is merely a guideline and has no force of law: Comptroller of Goods and Services Tax v Dynamac Enterprise [2022] 5 SLR 442 at [21]. I thus cannot accord much weight to his opinions on the applicable tax position. Furthermore, as neither party has made submissions on the applicable tax rules, it would not be right for me to come to a firm landing on whether Mr Doney should or should not have declared and paid tax on the “additional” income. The point is that it is possible that Mr Doney’s foreign sourced income was not taxable and did not need to be declared (or at least Mr Doney believed that to be the case).

48 I also cannot ignore the possibility that Mr Doney (as a self-employed person) might have under-declared his income to IRAS, although I stress again that I make no finding as to whether this was indeed the case. In Christina Hanson, the court was similarly alive to the possibility that the deceased’s declared income might not have been accurate because he had been “trying to lower his income and conceal his assets as a result of the matrimonial proceedings” (at [9]). Similarly, in this case, it would be artificial and blinkered for me to treat the IRAS NOAs as conclusive evidence.

49 For these reasons, I find that Mr Potter’s calculations as derived from Mr Doney’s various financial documents are a better approximation of Mr Doney’s gross income. I accept Mrs Doney’s evidence that 6% is a better estimation of Mr Doney’s yearly operating expenses than the defendants’ figure of more than 50%. Apart from the suggestion that Mrs Doney’s calculations might be subjective and speculative, ⁷⁷ the defendants could not point to any specific error with, or objection to, Mrs Doney’s calculations. I was initially minded to round up the figure to 10% to account for the possibility that Mrs Doney’s computation might not be completely accurate – for example, to account for the possibility that Mr Doney may have had other expenses which he paid for in cash, which would not have been reflected in his bank statements. But in the end, I have decided to affirm the figure of 6% as there is no evidence before me of any errors in Mrs Doney’s computation; it would accordingly be unfair to the plaintiffs if I were to simply round up the figure to 10% to account for possible errors when no specific errors have been highlighted by the defendants. Accordingly, I will use a figure of 6% to represent Mr Doney’s yearly operating expenses, and which will need to be deducted from his projected gross income.

50 For completeness, I would add that it is beside the point whether there was any actual under-declaration of income by Mr Doney (whether negligently or deliberately). The common law has generally not barred claims for lost earnings on the basis of prior failures to pay tax, save that adjustments may need to be made to account for duties owed: Newman v Folkes [2002] EWCA Civ 591 at [14] (cf. Hunter v Butler [1995] Lexis Citation 4352, where the claimant was unable to claim dependency for fraudulently obtained and undeclared earnings as she had been privy and a party to her husband’s illegal activities; see James Edelman, McGregor on Damages (21st Ed, Sweet & Maxwell 2021) (“McGregor on Damages”) at para 41-013). As I have made no findings on the applicable tax position, no further adjustment is required as regards Mr Doney’s pre-accident earnings.

51 The next issue I turn to is how Mr Doney’s income should be projected over time. The parties adopted two different approaches towards projecting Mr Doney’s income.

52 For the plaintiffs:

(a) Mr Potter took the average of Mr Doney’s income for the years 2016 to 2019 (see above at [35]) to obtain a figure of S$233,433.59 as Mr Doney’s projected gross income for the year 2020, being the year immediately after Mr Doney’s passing. ⁷⁸

(b) As to the rate of increase in Mr Doney’s income, the plaintiffs have provided two possibilities for my consideration. ⁷⁹ Their (presumably) primary position is that Mr Doney’s income, up to the age of 70, would have increased at a rate above inflation commensurate with increases enjoyed by workers in Singapore (based on statistics from the Ministry of Manpower). After age 70, it would have increased in line with inflation – the plaintiffs’ calculations in this regard have been reproduced below at Figure 2 (assuming a retirement age of 77 in the year 2041). ⁸⁰ In the alternative, Mr Doney’s income would at least have increased in line with inflation.

53 For the defendants:

(a) Mr Tam first derived an average profit margin (in percentage terms) for the years 2016 to 2018 based on his assumption that the difference in declared income was due to Mr Doney’s high operating expenses (an assumption I have already rejected at [45]–[49] above). As alluded to above, Mr Tam also suggested removing Mr Doney’s 2017 income from the dataset because it was an outlier. In this regard, he prepared two sets of calculations, showing the impact of Mr Doney’s 2017 income on Mr Doney’s average profit margin. As can be seen from Mr Tam’s calculations reproduced at Figure 1 (see above at [41]), including Mr Doney’s 2017 income would increase Mr Doney’s average profit margin from 53% to 57%.

(b) After calculating the average profit margin (with and without the 2017 income as an outlier), Mr Tam then obtained Mr Doney’s “Net Trade Income” for the year 2019 by applying the average profit margin percentage (ie, either 53% or 57%) to Mr Doney’s gross income of S$242,117 for the year 2019. Mr Tam then applies this 2019 “Net Trade Income” for all subsequent years, with no changes for inflation or increases in income. Figure 3 illustrates this, using a “Base Case Scenario” where Mr Doney’s 2017 income is excluded (ie, applying a 53% profit margin): ⁸¹

54 Arising from this discussion, three sub-issues need to be determined here:

55 Mr Tam raises the issue of whether the gross income from 2017 should be included in the data set, or whether projections of Mr Doney’s income should only be assessed based on the years 2016, 2018, and 2019. The reason for this is that Mr Tam considers Mr Doney’s 2017 income to be a “significant outlier”. ⁸²

56 I reject Mr Tam’s suggestion that Mr Doney’s income for 2017 should be removed from the analysis. Mr Tam quite candidly acknowledged at trial that the decision of whether to characterise 2017 as an outlier was “subjective”, and he was not saying that this was necessarily the “right way” to go about it. ⁸³ Mr Tam also cautioned that the data set was very limited, ⁸⁴ but in my view a limited data set instead militates against finding that any particular year is an “outlier”. Further, the only conceivable reason for characterising 2017 as an outlier is because, as is apparent from the table at [35], Mr Doney’s gross income for that year was somewhat higher than in any of the other years from 2016 to 2019. In my view, that is not a justifiable basis upon which to exclude the 2017 income from the calculations.

57 For these reasons, I find that Mr Doney’s 2017 income is not an outlier and should be included in the calculations of his projected income.

58 Having considered the two approaches above (at [52] and [53]), I prefer Mr Potter’s approach which projects Mr Doney’s income for the year 2020 by averaging out his gross income for the years 2016 to 2019. In my view, this gives effect to the full range of data points available. I acknowledge that Mr Tam’s approach also involves “averaging” in the sense that Mr Tam sought to obtain Mr Doney’s average profit margin, but I do not think it would be appropriate to adopt his approach given my disagreement with his method of calculating Mr Doney’s operating expenses (see above at [45]).

59 That said, I would make a slight adjustment to Mr Potter’s approach. The 2019 gross income figure which Mr Potter obtained (see above at [35]) should be further pro-rated to reflect the additional income Mr Doney might have earned on the assumption he continued working for the remainder of 2019. These calculations have been performed below at [70].

60 The last sub-issue is the extent to which Mr Doney’s income would have increased over the years.

61 The plaintiffs say that Mr Doney’s income would have increased at a faster rate than inflation due to the increased opportunities for VFX artists post-COVID, the introduction of artificial intelligence (“AI”) software, and Mr Doney’s “calibre, work experience and business experience”. ⁸⁵ There was, for example, evidence from Mr Doney’s peers in the industry that he was “highly regarded”, ⁸⁶ and that he was apparently charging below market rates. ⁸⁷

62 The defendants disagree that Mr Doney’s income would have increased at rates above inflation. They argue that: ⁸⁸

(a) Mr Potter’s position that Mr Doney’s business would grow faster than the rate of inflation was based on instructions he had received from the plaintiffs and not objective documentary evidence. ⁸⁹

(b) Mr Doney’s income had fluctuated significantly year on year, while a general worker in Singapore had seen a steady increase in income. There was thus “no basis to assume any correlation in income trend between [Mr Doney] and a general Singapore employed worker”. ⁹⁰

63 As a starting point, it is not unusual for the court to factor in salary increments when assessing future earnings: see Rajina Sharma d/o Rajandran v Theyvasigamani s/o Periasamy [2024] SGHC 42 (“Rajina Sharma”) at [106]. But such future increments need to be reasonably supported by evidence. Where the plaintiff is employed with a company, the court ordinarily has the benefit of evidence such as salary scales (Rajina Sharma at [94], [106]–[107]) and testimony from the plaintiff’s superiors to assess the likelihood of increments and / or promotions: see Pollmann, Christian Joachim v Ye Xianrong [2021] 5 SLR 1111 at [93]; Choong Peng Kong v Koh Hong Son [2003] 4 SLR(R) 225 at [11]–[14].

64 However, such evidence is harder to come by in the case of self-employed persons such as Mr Doney. Nevertheless, it is still possible for the plaintiffs to prove that Mr Doney’s income would have increased rateably over the years, but this would require more consistent evidence as to his yearly earnings. I accept the defendants’ submissions that on the available evidence, Mr Doney’s income fluctuated significantly – on the plaintiffs’ own calculations, by approximately 20% from year to year. ⁹¹ While the plaintiffs stress that Mr Doney’s income ultimately averaged out to a 5.33% annual growth rate, ⁹² there is a possibility that the available data might have simply ended on a good year and if Mr Doney had worked into 2020 (when COVID-19 struck), the fluctuations might have seen his average annual growth dip into the negative.

65 I have also considered the evidence from Mr Doney’s peers as to his business prospects. Mr Evans, ⁹³ Mr Blackwell, ⁹⁴ Mr Stevens, ⁹⁵ and Mr Paul, ⁹⁶ all gave evidence that Mr Doney was highly skilled in his work and had a good reputation in the industry. Mr William describes him as “simply brilliant, capable, and amazingly smart”. ⁹⁷ The AEICs of his peers who did not testify (see above at [16]) were similarly positive. Mr Evans said that Mr Doney charged only S$1,000 a day when he could have charged up to S$4,000 a day. ⁹⁸ Mr Blackwell, also a freelance VFX artist, said that the profitability of his business significantly increased post-COVID and he was of the view that Mr Doney stood to benefit in the same manner. ⁹⁹ Generally speaking, there is some precedent for using evidence from similarly placed businessmen to estimate growth potential: XYZ v Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust [2011] EWHC 243 (QB) (“XYZ”) at [48], cited with apparent approval in Yap Boon Fong Yvonne v Wong Kok Mun Alvin [2018] SGHC 26 at [111].

66 However, I do not think the evidence and the probabilities of success here rise to the same level as in XYZ. For one, Mr Blackwell’s freelance business was substantially smaller than Mr Doney’s. Between 2016 to 2019, his business was earning on average slightly more than S$50,000 a year – Mr Doney was earning more than four times this amount (see above at [35]). ¹⁰⁰ It is difficult to compare experiences between businesses of such a different scale. Mr Blackwell also conceded in cross-examination that his client base was not “exactly identical” to Mr Doney’s, ¹⁰¹ and this was another factor which made it difficult to draw a clean analogy between his and Mr Doney’s businesses. To the extent that Mr Blackwell’s remarks on the post-COVID boom were intended to be applicable across the industry, I have difficulty placing much weight on them for much the same reasons. Second, it is unclear why Mr Doney only charged S$1000 per day when he could have “easily” charged higher rates, and I do not think it is appropriate to assume that he would have done so in the future when he had not in the past. Even if I assumed that Mr Doney would have been able to reap the rewards of the apparent post-COVID boom in VFX related work, I agree with the defendants that it would be speculative to assume that his business growth would “continue indefinitely”. ¹⁰² I am also not persuaded by the submission that new technologies such as AI would necessarily have been a boon for Mr Doney – these were ultimately bare assertions. In the absence of any objective or expert evidence, some account must also be given to the risk that new technologies like AI could very well result in reduced demand for VFX artists in the future. For his part, Mr Blackwell felt that it “might be a boom rather than a bust”, ¹⁰³ but in my opinion, these possibilities would cancel each other out.

67 Ultimately, the opinions of Mr Doney’s industry colleagues as to the likelihood of his success must yield to the objective financial data, which unfortunately shows that Mr Doney’s business did not have a clear growth trajectory. My decision might have been different if Mr Doney’s income had increased more consistently, instead of fluctuating as significantly as it did.

68 For these reasons, I find and hold that Mr Doney’s income would only have increased at the same rate as inflation. The multipliers provided by the PIRC Tables already provide for an in-built inflation rate of 2% (see PIRC Tables, Preface at p viii). In view of the caution that the multipliers in the PIRC Tables should be used with a multiplicand that “does not allow for inflation”, I do not think any further adjustment to the multiplicand (ie, Mr Doney’s income) is necessary or appropriate.

69 Having regard to the findings I have reached up to this point, Mr Doney’s gross income and income after deducting 6% in operating expenses is represented by Figure 4:

70 Let me explain the figures in this table. Mr Doney’s 2019 gross income figure was S$242,117 (as computed by Mr Potter; see above at [35]). I have adjusted this figure slightly (see above at [59]). In Figure 4, Mr Doney’s 2019 gross income of S$277,901.59 was obtained by taking the figure of S$242,117, which represents his 2019 income from 1 January 2019 to 14 November 2019 (ie, a period of 318 days), and then pro-rating it on the basis that Mr Doney had worked the full year (ie, 365 days). The final net income figure for 2019 used to calculate the dependency award for that year (ie, the sum of S$261,227.49) will also be pro-rated to reflect that the period of dependency in 2019 is only 47 days (ie, from 15 November to 31 December 2019).

71 As for the remaining years in Figure 4 from 2020 onwards, I have adopted Mr Potter’s method of using Mr Doney’s average income (see above at [52(a)] and [58]–[59]), albeit with a slight modification of using the pro-rated figure of S$277,901.59 as Mr Doney’s gross income in 2019 income (instead of S$242,117). This results in an average gross annual income of S$242,492.40 (for the years 2016 to 2019), and which is then applied as the gross annual income from 2020 onwards. A 6% deduction for business expenses is applied to each year’s gross income starting from 2019 (see above at [49]), and no further adjustments have been made for income growth / inflation (see above at [68]).

72 The next step in the process is to ascertain the applicable income tax that would be payable on Mr Doney’s projected income.

73 I understand that the applicable tax rates and the availability of reliefs are by and large not in issue between the parties (save for perhaps some marginal differences). Mr Potter originally undertook his calculations on the basis that Mr Doney would pay income tax and CPF on the same proportion of income that had been declared from 2016 to 2018, ¹⁰⁴ but the plaintiffs subsequently instructed Mr Potter to provide calculations assuming that all of Mr Doney’s future income was taxable. ¹⁰⁵

74 It is not clear to me whether this was a concession by the plaintiffs or merely an alternative set of calculations provided to assist the court, but in my view, if it was a concession, it was one rightly made. There was limited evidence and submissions on Mr Doney’s foreign-sourced income and the tax implications of the same. In the absence of any further material, the e-Tax Guide does suggest that Singapore resident taxpayers are taxed on foreign-sourced income unless they receive the applicable tax exemptions: e-Tax Guide at para 4.1. However, no evidence was tendered by the plaintiffs as to whether Mr Doney had the relevant tax exemptions. Notwithstanding my caution above at [47] about the non-conclusiveness of the e-Tax Guide, in the absence of any such evidence or submissions on this question, I am content to proceed on the basis that all of Mr Doney’s projected income should be taxable. I also repeat my observations above at [45] under Step 1.

75 Figures 5 and 6 (in which Figure 6 is a continuation from Figure 5) show a sampling of how the applicable tax reliefs and income tax are applied to Mr Doney’s gross income to obtain his net income:

76 As I have explained above (at [70]), Mr Doney’s gross income for 2019 is pro-rated to reflect that the plaintiffs’ period of dependency for that year should only be for the remaining 47 days from 15 November 2019 to 31 December 2019. The pro-rated sum can be seen in the last column of Figure 6.

77 The complete set of income calculations can be found in Annex A to this judgment. I note that Mr Potter had applied a $200 tax rebate for the year 2023 while Mr Tam does not appear to have applied any rebate. In my view, the appropriate tax rebates should be applied and the appropriate rebate is $200 in 2024 and 2025 respectively. ¹⁰⁶

78 Both parties agree that Mr Doney’s savings would have amounted to S$63,508.81 annually, and his CPF contributions (ie, towards Medisave) would be in accordance with the applicable rates adopted by the CPF Board – this would range from S$7,560 to S$10,080. ¹⁰⁷

79 Mr Doney’s disposable income (“Disposable Income”) is obtained by deducting his savings and CPF contributions from his net income (calculated above at [75]). His Disposable Income represents the amount available for his personal expenditure (leaving aside savings) and for expenditure on the plaintiffs (ie, as dependants) – a sample of these calculations is provided in Figure 7 below:

The “Net Income” figures are the same “Net Income” figures taken from Figure 6 (above at [75]).

80 The next issue in the methodology concerns the period of dependency. This represents the length of time during which the plaintiffs would reasonably expect Mr Doney to financially support them. For convenience, I will also address issues concerning the proportion of his Disposable Income (as defined above at [79]) which Mr Doney was expected to expend on himself, as well as on his family (ie, item [26(e)] above).

81 The plaintiffs’ approach, which assesses dependency collectively, is as follows: ¹⁰⁸

(a) Mr Doney would have spent 20% of his Disposable Income on himself (leaving 80% for his family) up to the age of 72. This 20% figure includes Mr Doney’s business expenses (which they estimate to be about 6%). ¹⁰⁹ Thus, in real terms, the plaintiffs allocate 14% of Mr Doney’s Disposable Income to his personal non-business expenses.

(b) At the age of 73, Mr Doney’s personal expenditure increases to 30%, leaving 70% for his family. The age of 73 is chosen as it corresponds to the year 2037, this being “the first year after Salvador and Genevieve would be expected to complete tertiary education”. ¹¹⁰ In 2037, Salvador will be 25 and Genevieve will be 23.

(c) The plaintiffs’ primary position is that Mr Doney would never have retired as he grew up in a family that “does not believe in retirement” and he “loved what he did and was devoted to it”. ¹¹¹ However, if necessary, the plaintiffs have selected the age of 83, this being the minimum age at which the plaintiffs say Mr Doney would have retired. ¹¹² On this basis, from age 73 to 83, Mr Doney would have spent 70% of his Disposable Income on his family (with the remaining 30% on himself). At trial, Mrs Doney also gave evidence that Mr Doney would have supported the children at least until they reached 27 years old (corresponding with Mr Doney reaching 77 years of age). The age 77 has therefore also been provided for comparative reasons, but the plaintiffs have taken pains to stress that this is not their case. ¹¹³

(d) After his retirement (at age 83, or such other age as the court may decide), Mr Doney would continue to spend an amount equivalent to 30% of his most recent yearly Disposable Income; the plaintiffs assume that he would have spent an equivalent amount on Mrs Doney to support her. In other words, his total expenditure post-retirement would be about 60% of his last available Disposable Income (representing a reduction in expenditure by about 40%). ¹¹⁴ Mr Doney would no longer earn any income after retirement. Thus, any further expenditure on himself and the plaintiffs (the latter of which would be awarded under the dependency claim) will need to be accounted for by deducting the amounts from Mr Doney’s savings and / or CPF, and consequently, the plaintiffs’ loss of inheritance claim. ¹¹⁵

82 The defendants adopt the following approach:

(a) Before retirement, Mr Doney would have spent 20% of his Disposable Income on himself. Unlike the plaintiffs, this 20% figure does not include Mr Doney’s business operating expenses. While all his children are still schooling, the remaining 80% would be split evenly between his four dependants, effectively giving each plaintiff a 20% share of his Disposable Income. As each of the three plaintiff-children finish their tertiary education (estimated to take place between 2033 and 2036), they will cease being dependant on Mr Doney and the sums he would have spent on them will instead be saved for distribution via inheritance. Figure 8 is adapted from Mr Tam’s calculations and shows an example of this approach by the defendants (albeit with different income values): ¹¹⁶

The last column of Figure 8 reflects the sums saved when Mr Doney’s children cease being dependant – these sums are added to the loss of inheritance award.

(b) Mr Doney would have retired at age 72.31 or 73, this being the age when Genevieve and Salvador would have graduated from a three-year university degree course (including time spent by Salvador undergoing National Service). ¹¹⁷ Madeline would have graduated about two years earlier.

(c) After retirement, Mr Tam’s calculations impliedly assume that Mr Doney would have maintained his overall expenditure (ie, he would have continued to spend the entirety of his last drawn Disposable Income). ¹¹⁸ This expenditure would be split in the following proportion: 33% on himself and 67% for the benefit of Mrs Doney and for the couple’s joint benefit. ¹¹⁹

(d) This expenditure would have lasted till Mr Doney passed naturally. As with the plaintiffs’ case, the yearly expenditure which needs to come out of Mr Doney’s savings (as outlined above at [81(d)]) will be accounted for and reflected by a reduction in the plaintiffs’ loss of inheritance claims. ¹²⁰

83 Based on these submissions, the issues which I have to decide are: (a) Mr Doney’s life expectancy; (b) Mr Doney’s retirement age; (c) the period of dependency; and (d) the sums Mr Doney was expected to have spent on himself and his family throughout his natural life.

84 The parties dispute how Mr Doney’s life expectancy should be accounted for. The plaintiffs say that with the PIRC Tables it is no longer necessary to fix a notional age of death. Instead, if the expense / loss is expected to run until death, then the applicable multipliers for each year should be used up to the header “Until death” (corresponding with 100 years of age) in the PIRC Tables, to reflect the probability of the victim “living to age 100 or passing on anytime in between”. ¹²¹ The plaintiffs cite Example 3 from the Explanatory Notes to the PIRC Tables (at p 3) as an example of this application. Figure 9 (which I have adapted from Mr Potter’s calculations) illustrates how the plaintiffs’ approach is applied in practice – the dependency is paid out every year until Mr Doney reaches age 100, with the corresponding multipliers applied to each year of payouts: ¹²²

85 By contrast, the defendants argue that the court should still choose a notional age of death – in this case, they have identified 83 as being Mr Doney’s life expectancy. The defendants cite Noor Azlin bte Abdul Rahman v Changi General Hospital Pte Ltd [2022] 1 SLR 689 (“Noor Azlin”) for the proposition that the life expectancy of a deceased person should be determined by reference to the average life expectancy in Singapore (absent evidence otherwise) (at [70]–[71]). ¹²³ Figure 10 (which I have adapted and pieced together from one of Mr Tam’s previous calculations) illustrates how the defendants’ approach would appear on paper – one would observe that the dependency ceases upon Mr Doney reaching 83 years of age at the end of 2046 / start of 2047, this being the defendants’ submitted life expectancy: ¹²⁴

86 Having considered the competing arguments, I agree with the plaintiffs that the main set of PIRC Tables (ie, Tables 1 and 2) no longer requires one to choose a notional age of death, and thus, the approach in Noor Azlin is no longer applicable when calculating a dependency claim. I find Example 3 of the PIRC Tables (at p 3) to be instructive. In that example, the plaintiff, aged 45 at the time of trial, suffers injuries from an accident that require him to wear prosthetics for the rest of his life. The future costs of the prosthetics from the date of trial are calculated by reference to a multiplier of 24.22, which is the multiplier for expenses running “Until death” (Table 1-10, for males age 45): see PIRC Tables, pp 3–4. I note that a similar approach of using the multiplier “Until death” was also adopted in Example 5 (see PIRC Tables, pp 5–7) for the future costs of an artificial limb.

87 In my view, choosing a notional age of death at 83 and then applying the relevant multiplier at age 83 from the main set of PIRC Tables would result in double discounting. ¹²⁵ This is because the multipliers in the main set of PIRC Tables (ie, Tables 1 and 2) already provide for the possibility that the deceased might die at a younger age. In other words, these multipliers already factor in the risk of mortality: Rajina Sharma at [66].

88 There is an important exception to these observations: choosing a notional age of death (ie, the Noor Azlin approach) would still be appropriate where the deceased’s lifespan is expected to be significantly shorter than that of an average Singapore resident. This is because the PIRC Tables have included Table 3 (pp 48–49), which applies a “pure present value discount … without consideration given to the shortened lifespan” (ie, without factoring in the risk of mortality): see footnote 1 to the Explanatory Notes of the PIRC Tables, p 1. Example 6 of the PIRC Tables (at pp 8–10) provides a scenario where Table 3 is used over and above the main set of tables. The example describes a male plaintiff who is aged 48 years at the date of hearing. An accident had rendered him a paraplegic and it was undisputed that he would not live beyond 60 years of age. The accompanying commentary on the head of claim for “[f]uture medical costs and expenses” is relevant (at p 9 of the PIRC Tables):

89 Therefore, it would only be appropriate to choose a notional age of death if Table 3 is used, as is done in Example 6 (at pp 8–10), but not otherwise.

90 I find support for this interpretation from the United Kingdom’s “Ogden Tables” (Government Actuary’s Department, Actuarial Tables: With Explanatory Notes for Use in Personal Injury and Fatal Accident Cases (8th Ed, updated as of August 2022) (Chairman: William Latimer-Sayer QC)), on which the PIRC Tables are based: PIRC Tables, Preface, p iv. Paragraphs 8–9 of the Explanatory Notes accompanying the Ogden Tables are instructive as to the proper approach towards life expectancy:

91 Thus, in the absence of any medical evidence that a deceased person would be an atypical case and would have had a shorter life expectancy, there is generally no need to choose a notional age of death when applying the multipliers in the PIRC Tables.

92 However, notwithstanding these observations, I have decided that it is appropriate to choose a notional age of death in this case and apply the corresponding multipliers in Table 3. I elaborate on my reasons for doing so later in this judgment (see below at [138] – [143]). At present, it suffices to note that choosing the applicable multipliers from Table 3 instead of the main set of PIRC Tables (ie, Tables 1 and 2) obviates the plaintiffs’ primary concern of double discounting. ¹²⁶

93 I turn now to consider the appropriate notional age of death for Mr Doney. For the defendants, Mr Tam has proffered a figure of 83 years of age (which he has himself adopted from statistics previously cited in POTTER1). ¹²⁷ As the plaintiffs did not see the need to choose a notional age of death, they have not taken a firm position on Mr Doney’s life expectancy. Nonetheless, their closing submissions highlight that Mr Doney was “blessed with healthy long-life genes” because his parents are “well, fit and alive in their 80s and before them, his grandparents lived well into their 90s”; Mr Doney was therefore “genetically set to live well into his 90s but-for the accident”. ¹²⁸

94 In my view, an appropriate notional age of death for Mr Doney would be 85. I have applied a small uplift to the defendants’ figure of 83 years in view of the plaintiffs’ evidence that Mr Doney and his family appeared to be generally healthy individuals. ¹²⁹ However, only a small uplift has been applied because I am also conscious that the plaintiffs’ evidence in this regard is entirely anecdotal. While the plaintiffs alluded to the presence of “expert” evidence on Mr Doney’s life expectancy, ¹³⁰ neither Mr Potter nor Mr Tam were giving expert evidence on life expectancy (nor were they qualified to), and so I consider that there is no evidence (in either direction) of Mr Doney’s state of health.

95 As noted above at [81(c)], the plaintiffs submit that Mr Doney would have worked for as long as possible. Nonetheless, they have proposed a retirement age of 83, “purely for computational purposes”. ¹³¹

96 The defendants submit that Mr Doney’s retirement age should be pegged at 73, which matches when Genevieve and Salvador would reasonably complete their tertiary education at the ages of 22 and 24 respectively (see above at [81(b)]). ¹³²

97 Unfortunately, apart from the assertions of their witnesses, ¹³³ there was no concrete evidence before me that Mr Doney intended to work without ever retiring. Further, there was the possibility that due to illness, old-age, or other factors, Mr Doney might not have been able to continue working all the way until the end of his natural life. I have however applied a small uplift to the defendants’ proposed retirement age of 73 on account of (a) “the fact that many undergraduate degree courses [now] take four years to complete” (coupled with the assumption that Mr Doney would have likely worked at least till his children completed their education): see Zhu Xiu Chun (alias Myint Myint Kyi) v Rockwills Trustee Ltd [2016] 5 SLR 412 (“Franklin Heng”) at [109]; and (b) the evidence of Mr Doney’s excellence in his profession (see above at [61] and [65]). These findings are also made against the backdrop of broader social trends (and government policy) which see people generally retiring at later ages: see for example, the observations in Rajina Sharma at [100], citing Muhammad Adam bin Muhammad Lee v Tay Jia Rong Sean [2022] 4 SLR 1045. In my view, in the circumstances of this case and on the evidence that was available, I find it fair and reasonable to fix Mr Doney’s notional age of retirement at 75.

98 As regards the period of dependency, there was considerable argument as to when the children would complete their university education (and hence become economically independent). However, I consider the importance of the children’s period of dependency to have largely fallen by the wayside in the final analysis for reasons I will elaborate.

99 The plaintiffs have argued on the basis that Mr Doney would have spent fixed proportions of his income on his family (collectively) at various points of his working life – this has been explained above at [81] and can be seen from Figure 9 (above at [84]). These sums were not tied to, and there was no distinction made, based on how many of his children had already begun working or were still in university. In other words, the children’s period of dependency was irrelevant if I adopted the plaintiffs’ basis of calculation.

100 As for the defendants, while I appreciate that Mr Tam’s approach (outlined above at [82(a)]) might be more precise, I ultimately prefer the plaintiffs’ approach of assessing dependency collectively for two reasons. First, Mr Tam’s approach would have added an additional layer of complexity to already very complex, difficult calculations. Second, and relatedly, I did not think that adopting either approach would have made a significant difference to the final award of damages. The period of dependency with which we are concerned only spans a handful of years during which the plaintiff-children graduate and begin to be financially independent. This would be a small portion of the overall time period with which we are concerned. Further, as I have taken pains to stress, any sum not paid out in dependency would instead be paid out via inheritance. Accordingly, I would adopt the plaintiffs’ simpler approach of treating the plaintiffs as a collective bloc, and it is therefore not necessary for me to make any findings on when the children were expected to become economically independent.

101 As for Mrs Doney, both parties submitted on the basis that Mr Doney would have supported Mrs Doney (who was 15 years younger) until his death. ¹³⁴ I note that in Example 7 of the PIRC Tables (p 11), the widow’s dependency is treated as ceasing at the end of the deceased’s economic lifespan (ie, upon his retirement but for the accident). However, I am willing to proceed on the common basis which the parties have adopted and treat Mrs Doney’s dependency as lasting until the end of Mr Doney’s natural life, which I have determined above (at [94]) to be 85 years of age.

102 I turn next to consider how much of Mr Doney’s income would have been allocated to the plaintiffs, as opposed to being spent on himself.

103 Traditionally, the law has presumed (in the absence of compelling evidence otherwise) that as between a husband and wife, a person will spend a third of their income on themselves, a third on their spouse, and the remaining third for their joint benefit; in a household of four with two children, 25% is presumed to be spent on personal expenses: Armstrong, Carol Ann v Quest Laboratories Pte Ltd [2020] 1 SLR 133 (“Carol Armstrong (CA)”) at [212]; Puspa Sinnappa v Balasingam s/o Rengasamy [2021] SGHC 171 at [11]–[12], citing Harris v Empress Motors Ltd [1984] 1 WLR 212.

104 Having regard to these presumptions, both parties apply a percentage deduction to Mr Doney’s income representing his personal expenses (after first deducting taxes and savings – both personal savings and CPF contributions). I am aware that there is some suggestion that the “percentage deduction” method as traditionally understood does not generally require a separate sum to be set aside for savings, with savings instead being impliedly taken into account as part of the plaintiff’s 25% or 33% share of personal expenses: see Tan Harry v Teo Chee Yeow Aloysius [2004] 1 SLR(R) 513 at [36]; Law Reform Committee, Singapore Academy of Law, Loss of Inheritance or Savings: A Proposal for Law Reform (April 2008) (Authors: Michael Hwang SC and Fong Lee Cheng) (“Law Reform Committee Report”) at paras 17–19. However, and as I noted above at [27], as the parties and their experts have proceeded on the broad common basis that the conventional deductions should be applied after savings have already been separately accounted for, I see no reason to overturn the apple cart and disturb this approach.

105 The parties’ positions have already been canvassed above in some detail at [81]–[82]. The broad areas of agreement and disagreement are as follows:

(a) While all the plaintiff-children are still schooling, both parties assume that Mr Doney would have spent 20% of his income on himself, and 80% on his dependants. The plaintiffs however clarify that their 20% figure includes Mr Doney’s business expenses (which they estimate at about 6%). ¹³⁵ Thus, in real terms, the plaintiffs allocate 14% of Mr Doney’s Disposable Income to his personal expenses. The defendants also adopt a figure of 20%, but which does not include Mr Doney’s business operating expenses (see [82(a)] above). As I have agreed with the plaintiffs’ approach of assessing dependency collectively (see above at [100]), the corollary of this is that the plaintiffs’ dependency will not change based on when each child achieves financial independence; rather, there will only be a change in the dependency when all three plaintiff-children graduate when Mr Doney reaches around 73 years of age.

(b) Both parties agree that Mr Doney’s personal expenses would increase after the year 2037 (when Mr Doney would be 73 years old), ¹³⁶ corresponding with when the children would likely have completed their tertiary education. After 2037, the plaintiffs adopt a figure of 30% for Mr Doney’s personal expenses. ¹³⁷ The defendants adopt a figure of 33% based on caselaw (as outlined above at [103]). ¹³⁸

(c) The experts disagree as to how Mr Doney’s expenditure would have changed upon his retirement. As noted above (at [81(d)], and [82(c)]–[82(d)]), the plaintiffs take the position that upon his retirement Mr Doney would have decreased his expenditure by about 40%. From that point on, he would have spent about 30% of his most recently drawn Disposable Income on himself and 30% on Mrs Doney. By contrast, the defendants take the position that Mr Doney would have continued to spend the same amount of money (ie, equivalent to his last drawn Disposable Income) up to his natural death, save that the proportions would have changed to become 33% for himself and 67% for Mrs Doney and their joint benefit.

106 As to [105(a)], I see no issue with adopting the figure of 20% assumed by both parties having regard to Mr Doney’s larger family – it is only a slight downward adjustment from the 25% suggested by case law. However, this figure of 20% should not, contrary to the plaintiffs’ submissions, include Mr Doney’s business expenses; the traditional percentages apply to personal expenses and there is no tangible, objective evidence that Mr Doney spent less than would have been expected for an average person of his age. As to [105(b)], for similar reasons, I would adopt the defendants’ figure of 33% after 2037 – in my view, there is no evidence that would justify a departure from the guidance given in the case law (see above at [103]).

107 The final issue in this section is which approach to adopt as regards the question of whether Mr Doney’s spending habits would have shifted upon his retirement (see [105(c)] above). On balance, I have taken the “middle ground” and find that Mr Doney’s post-retirement expenditure would be about 70% of his pre-retirement expenditure (ie, a reduction of about 30%). As before, this amount will be split 33% for his personal expenses, and 67% for Mrs Doney and the couple’s joint benefit.

108 While I agree with the plaintiffs that Mr Doney’s expenditure would have decreased once his three children attained financial independence, in my view, this would be offset somewhat by increases in expenditure on himself and Mrs Doney. In my view and gazing into the crystal ball as best as I can, it makes logical sense that Mr Doney’s spending on himself and Mrs Doney would, more likely than not, also increase in his later years on account of (i) enjoying his retirement with Mrs Doney; and (ii) possible increases in expenditure due to medical bills and other age-related ailments. However, I do not think that any such increase in expenditure would be so great as to totally set off the amounts he would have spent on his dependant children.

109 I would add for completeness that in the ultimate analysis, I do not think that adopting either of the parties’ positions here will result in any significant difference to the amount of damages awarded – this is because any additional monies awarded for the loss of dependency will invariably result in lower savings for Mr Doney, and consequently, a lower award for loss of inheritance for the plaintiffs (see the discussion above at [81(d)]). Put simply, filling one bucket with more can only be achieved by draining the other bucket.

110 Lastly, the loss of dependency should be calculated by applying the applicable multipliers in the PIRC Tables to the yearly amounts of dependency. There is no dispute on how the multipliers should be applied apart from those I have already addressed above in relation to Mr Doney’s life expectancy. As I have noted above at [92], I adopt Mr Tam’s approach of using a notional age of death but will utilise the relevant multipliers from Table 3 of the PIRC Tables.

111 The yearly (or “annual”) multiplier is obtained by deducting the multiplier for any given year from the multiplier in the previous year. By way of illustration, the multipliers in Table 3 of the PIRC Tables for a 14 and 15- year annuity are as follows:

Using this table, the present value (excluding mortality risk) of a payment of S$1,000 a year received annually for 14 years is S$1,000 multiplied by 13.29, which equates to S$13,290. Similarly, a S$1,000 annual payment for 15 years will be S$1,000 multiplied by 14.00, which equates to S$14,000. This method of using a single multiplier is appropriate where yearly payments are expected to be consistent over time.

112 In the case of a dependency claim however, individual annual multipliers may be used instead to reflect the fact that the deceased’s income – and consequently, the amount of dependency expected each year – is likely to change over the years. Using this approach, the annual multiplier of 0.71 is obtained by subtracting 13.29 from 14.00 – this figure represents the present value of a single one-time payment expected to be made 15 years from now. In other words, the present value of S$1,000 expected to be received 15 years later is S$1,000 multiplied by 0.71 which equates to S$710. In respect of the dependency claim in this case, both experts adopted this approach of applying the annual multiplier to Mr Doney’s projected yearly income. In my view, this method is conceptually sound and consistent with how monies would have been spent by Mr Doney on the plaintiffs had he been alive.

113 Both experts have also agreed to apply a further adjustment of 0.8031 (based on the Ogden Tables) to the applicable multipliers, ¹³⁹ up to the point of Mr Doney’s retirement – this is to reflect the possibility of other vicissitudes of life apart from mortality. ¹⁴⁰ This adjustment factor, is however, not applied to the dependency after Mr Doney retires, because at that point “the dependencies [sic] are no longer depend[a]nt on [Mr Doney] being able to work”. ¹⁴¹ Mr Tam confirmed his agreement with this position at trial. ¹⁴² I do not see any conceptual difficulty why this same adjustment factor should not also be applied to the multipliers obtained from Table 3. There is no risk of double discounting in doing so because the further adjustment factor is only intended to capture non-mortality risks, which risks are not built into Table 3.

114 To summarise, based on the foregoing analysis, these are my findings and conclusions in relation to the loss of dependency claim:

(i) Before the age of 73, he would have spent 20% of his Disposable Income (excluding his business operating expenses) on himself, leaving 80% of his income for his family.

(ii) From the age of 73 until his retirement at age 75, Mr Doney would maintain his overall expenditure, and this would be split in the following proportion: 33% of his Disposable Income on himself, and 67% on Mrs Doney and for their joint benefit (see above at [106]).

(iii) After retirement at age 75, Mr Doney’s expenditure would decrease by about 30%, meaning he would be spending 70% of what he was spending pre-retirement. This amount will be split in the same 33%-67% proportion as before (see above at [107]).

115 I adopt the multipliers from Table 3 of the PIRC Tables, with a further adjustment factor of 0.8031 (as agreed by the parties’ experts) being applied to account for other vicissitudes of life up to Mr Doney’s retirement age (see above at [110]–[113]).

116 The calculation and quantification of the loss of dependency claim as assessed by me, based on my conclusions summarised at [114]–[115], is set out at Annex B of this judgment.

117 Accordingly, the total damages I award for the loss of dependency claim is S$1,987,704.60.

118 I move to the next head of the plaintiffs’ claim and this is for loss of inheritance. A loss of inheritance claim arises under s 22(1A) of the CLA (reproduced above at [23]). In Franklin Heng, the Court of Appeal set out the appropriate methodology to calculate a loss of inheritance claim (at [125]):

119 Preliminarily, I recapitulate that there is no dispute as to the amounts Mr Doney would have saved personally and via his CPF contributions (see above at [78]). ¹⁴³ There is also no issue arising from Mr Doney’s expenses. These will comprise any amounts paid under the dependency claim which cannot be supported by Mr Doney’s income (and which would thus have to be deducted from his savings) (see above at [81(d)] and [82(d)]).

120 Based on the arguments raised before me, three issues arise for my determination:

121 Mr Tam performed his calculations using simple interest while the plaintiffs have argued for interest on a compounded basis. ¹⁴⁴ The defendants submit that using compound interest is “legally unsound”. ¹⁴⁵ They cite the Court of Appeal case of Franklin Heng, which they say stands for the proposition that the court will not make “speculative assumptions about the rate of return the deceased would have achieved”. ¹⁴⁶ In response, the plaintiffs argue that:

(a) Franklin Heng was case specific and is now outdated in light of the PIRC Tables. ¹⁴⁷

(b) Mr Doney did and would have reinvested his savings – Mr Doney’s savings were mostly in his NAB Account, and the evidence also apparently showed that he was “about to invest in land, which is commonly understood to appreciate in value in a compounded fashion”. ¹⁴⁸ Both experts had “assumed that Mr Doney would have decided to invest his annual savings”. ¹⁴⁹

(c) Interest on CPF already compounds, and so other savings should also be compounded. Reference was also made to the Law Reform Committee Report which observed at paragraph 84 that “normal savings should be treated similarly to CPF, as there is no logical distinction between the two”. ¹⁵⁰ The evidence also establishes that Mr Doney did generate consistent returns on his CPF. ¹⁵¹

(d) There is minimal risk because investing over a long time frame would have spread out the risk. ¹⁵² It is reasonable to assume a “steady rate of return” in the form of 2% compounding interest, which is the long-term inflation estimate applied by the PIRC Tables. ¹⁵³

(e) There is precedent for applying a compounding rate of interest. In Rajina Sharma, the court accepted that the plaintiff’s savings would have accumulated in a compounding manner in the INVEST fund. ¹⁵⁴

122 As to the last issue, the defendants’ response is that Rajina Sharma should be confined to its facts. The INVEST scheme was an employee investment scheme provided by the plaintiff’s employer, the Singapore Police Force, and there was clear documentary evidence regarding the terms of the scheme and how the rates would be applied. ¹⁵⁵

123 I begin my analysis by first considering Franklin Heng. In that case, the administrator of the deceased’s estate argued that an award for loss of inheritance was meant to capture the “future value of a recurring amount of savings that can be invested or can generate interest”; this meant that compounded interest from re-invested savings and / or investments should be factored into the calculation (at [119]). The court expressed reservations about this approach. It observed that it would be too speculative to factor in (a) the returns that a deceased would have obtained if he decided to invest his savings, and (b) the chance that he would be able to generate steady returns (as opposed to losing his investment) (at [121]). Thus, the court was not prepared to hold that compounded interest should be taken into account “as a matter of course”, but it acknowledged that it could be factored in “should the evidence establish that a deceased was an investor who generated a consistent rate of returns on his investments” (at [121]).

124 In my view, Franklin Heng remains good law. The plaintiffs did not elaborate why Franklin Heng is no longer applicable or outdated following the introduction of the PIRC Tables, and I see no reason or basis to adopt this premise. Thus, a compounded rate of return is only justified here if it is adequately supported by the evidence.

125 I am prepared to accept that interest on Mr Doney’s CPF savings would have been compounded. The CPF scheme is akin to the INVEST scheme in Rajina Sharma. The rates of return are clearly published and applied by the government.

126 However, I do not think that the evidence supports the plaintiffs’ submission that interest on Mr Doney’s personal savings should also be compounded. Mr Doney may have had substantial savings in his NAB Account but there was no evidence before me as to the terms of the NAB Account or the actual interest rates that Mr Doney had received or stood to receive. The plaintiffs’ assertion that Mr Doney was about to invest in land which would have appreciated is also unsupported – ¹⁵⁶ there is no evidence that Mr Doney had taken any concrete steps towards purchasing any particular piece of land (for example, being given an option to purchase a property), much less evidence as to the returns expected on that investment.

127 I also reject the plaintiffs’ submission that savings in a bank account should be compounded because the Law Reform Committee Report suggested that savings should be treated similarly to CPF. ¹⁵⁷ In my view, this submission mischaracterises the comments found at paragraph 84 of the Law Reform Committee Report. Paragraph 84 appears in a section of the report dedicated to explaining why other types of savings should be awarded to dependants, in view of the fact that CPF contributions were already being awarded in dependency claims: Law Reform Committee Report, Section III(A)(4). It was in this context that the committee felt it would be “consistent to treat other types of savings in a similar manner and award compensation as well”: Law Reform Committee Report at para 79. Thus, properly understood, savings are only treated similarly to CPF funds in the context of the recommendation that they should also be recoverable in dependency claims. Whether personal savings and CPF funds would achieve similar rates of return is a wholly different matter which the Law Reform Committee Report did not express any views on. Accordingly, I prefer and accept the defendants’ position that Mr Doney’s savings should only accumulate simple interest.

128 Flowing from these conclusions, I will apply the following interest rates:

(a) Mr Doney’s personal savings will accrue simple interest. Mr Potter takes the view that Mr Doney’s personal savings would accrue simple interest at the same rate that “the PIRC Tables assume that claimants will earn on awards of damages” and so there was no need to make any further adjustments to his calculations. ¹⁵⁸ Mr Tam’s position is that Mr Doney’s personal savings would earn about 1.9% of interest, a figure which he obtained from POTTER1. ¹⁵⁹ To the extent this figure of 1.9% appears to be a real rate that excludes inflation, ¹⁶⁰ I decline to adopt it. In the absence of evidence as to the interest rates Mr Doney stood to receive on his personal savings (see above at [126]), I do not think it likely that his personal savings were likely to accrue interest consistently at a rate above that adopted in the PIRC Tables. Therefore, for the purposes of my calculations, there is no need to make any further adjustment to reflect the accrual of interest on Mr Doney’s personal savings – this is already accounted for simply by using the PIRC multipliers, which already account for inflation at a rate of 2% per annum (see above at [68]).

(b) Mr Doney’s CPF savings will accrue compound interest at a rate of about 4.08% per annum. ¹⁶¹ To obtain the real interest rate (ie, after deducting the in-built inflation in the PIRC Tables), Mr Tam used an interest rate of 2.04% which he derived via the calculations shown below in Figure 11: ¹⁶²

The plaintiffs have not suggested an alternative figure to be applied to the CPF savings calculations. I see no issue with Mr Tam’s calculations and agree to apply a real interest rate of 2.04% to Mr Doney’s CPF savings.

129 Both sides disagreed with how the other party’s expert calculated the loss of inheritance claim. Mr Potter had adopted the same “probability-weighted” method he had used for the dependency claim, in which he calculated the “annual multiplier” to be applied for each year of savings. Mr Tam rejected this approach as it “inherently assume[s] that the inheritance is paid out annually” to the plaintiffs, instead of on Mr Doney’s death. ¹⁶³

130 Mr Tam’s approach was similar to the one he utilised for the loss of dependency claim in that he picked a notional age of death. By way of illustration, on the basis of the defendants’ original submission that Mr Doney would have lived till 83, Mr Tam applied a single-adjusted multiplier of 0.22 – ¹⁶⁴ this was obtained by taking the annual multiplier of 0.28 (for the year Mr Doney turns 83) and multiplying this by the further adjustment factor of 0.8031 to account for the other vicissitudes of life apart from mortality risk. ¹⁶⁵ In light of my finding that Mr Doney would have lived till 85, Mr Tam’s method would have yielded a single-adjusted multiplier of 0.15 – being the annual multiplier of 0.19 multiplied by 0.8031. The plaintiffs take issue with this approach because they say that a single-adjusted multiplier, when combined with a single life-expectancy, results in multiple discounting. ¹⁶⁶

131 I agree with the criticisms levelled against both methodologies. Mr Potter’s method uses yearly multipliers which, conceptually, presumes that the payment is made or received in each year the multiplier is applied. If that approach is correct, then a greater discount must be applied because the effect of utilising such an approach is that the plaintiffs are, in essence, receiving their inheritance much earlier than they otherwise would have: Franklin Heng at [138]. For Mr Tam, his use of a single life expectancy (notional age of death) together with the main set of PIRC multipliers will lead to double discounting, for the reasons I have identified above at [87] (ie, mortality risk is doubly discounted). Further, I do not agree that Mr Tam should have applied a further adjustment factor of 0.8031 – this is because the additional adjustment factor is intended to account for risks associated with Mr Doney’s ability to work, which will no longer be present post-retirement (see above at [110]). In any event, the defendants appear to have departed from the initial approach of using a single-adjusted multiplier in their subsequent calculations. In their solicitors’ most recent letter to the court dated 18 September 2025, the defendants acknowledge that there should be “no adjusted multiplier for a period between 78 to 83 years old”, this being within the period of Mr Doney’s notional retirement. ¹⁶⁷

132 Unfortunately, the PIRC Tables do not provide guidance on (a) whether they have any application to a loss of inheritance claim by dependants and (b) how to properly arrive at the multiplier for a loss of inheritance claim. As such, the only recourse I have is to the methodologies provided by both experts, but with necessary adaptations made to account for the criticisms referred to above in order to arrive at an outcome that is in my view principled, and on the evidence, fair and reasonable.

133 In the round, I am generally more inclined towards Mr Tam’s method, albeit with some necessary adjustments made to remove the double discount for mortality risk. I agree with Mr Tam’s approach of using a single multiplier. As I have explained above at [111]–[112], the annual multiplier adopted at age 85 represents the present value of a single one-time payment paid out in the year 2049 (assuming Mr Doney passes on that year, being the year in which he would have turned 85 but for the Accident). This approach more accurately fits in with the nature of how an inheritance is usually received. Notwithstanding my comments in relation to Mr Doney’s life expectancy at [84]–[90] above in assessing the loss of dependency claim, I do not think it is possible nor is it intuitively logical to use the “Until death” header in the PIRC Tables in the case of loss of inheritance claims because there are no recurring payments to be made in such a claim as opposed to a claim for loss of dependency. To adopt the multiplier for the “Until death” year would unfairly penalise the plaintiffs because, technically and applying the underlying rationale behind those tables, it would imply that the plaintiffs will (or could theoretically) only receive their inheritance when Mr Doney turns 100 – but such a long period of time would result in artificially high discount rates with the resultant amount undercompensating the plaintiffs. Such an outcome does not seem fair or right and is perhaps a further indicator that the PIRC Tables might not be particularly well-suited for determining the multiplier for a loss of inheritance claim by dependants. In my view, for the purposes of calculating the loss of inheritance claim, it is still necessary to decide on a notional age of death, and for the reasons I have given above, I have arrived at the age of 85.

134 To obtain the present value of a lump sum payment notionally assumed to be made at age 85, reference can again be made to the multipliers presented in Table 3 of the PIRC Tables (pp 48–49). As mentioned above, the figures in Table 3 only account for accelerated receipt, and not mortality (the chance of which is already reflected in my decision to adopt 85 as Mr Doney’s notional age of death had the Accident not occurred). Thus, to obtain the present value of an inheritance payment made at an age of death of 85, one can look at the difference in the multiplier between an annuity term of 30 and 29 years respectively – there being 30 years between the ages 55 (being Mr Doney’s age at the date of the Accident) and 85 (being his notional age of death if the Accident had not occurred). The annual multiplier for the 30th year is 0.39 (22.17 minus 21.78). This means a payment made 30 years from 2019 should be multiplied by 0.39 (in other words, representing a discount of 61%) to obtain the present value of this expected payment 30 years later.

135 Accordingly, the methodology to calculate the plaintiffs’ loss of inheritance would involve two steps: (a) first, all of Mr Doney’s savings (less his accumulated expenses) up to the age of 85 would have to be totalled up; (b) second, that sum would have to be multiplied by 0.39 to reflect the discount for the accelerated receipt of the inheritance.

136 As a cross-check, I note that the multiplier of 0.39 is broadly in line with the discount applied in Franklin Heng. In that case, the children were receiving their inheritance 36 years earlier than they otherwise would have. A discount of 70% (ie, a multiplier of 0.30) was applied to account for the (a) accelerated receipt of their inheritance and (b) the deceased’s post-retirement expenses (at [138]–[140]). In this case, a smaller discount of 61% (corresponding to a multiplier of 0.39) is being applied, but the comparatively smaller discount is justifiable on account of (i) the plaintiffs receiving their inheritance 30 years earlier (in contrast to 36 years in Franklin Heng), and (ii) there being no further discount required for post-retirement expenses since these have already been deducted from the multiplicand.

137 Lastly, and while this has not been raised by either party, I consider it also necessary to apply the adjustment multiplier of 0.8031 to Mr Doney’s yearly personal savings and CPF contributions. This is to account for the non-mortality risks (ie, inability to work) that may lead to Mr Doney not being able to earn income and contribute these savings / CPF funds in any given year. There is no need to factor in a further multiplier for mortality risk because I have already chosen a notional age of death.

138 I pause here to provide some observations on the interaction between the dependency claim and the loss of inheritance claim, as well as to explain why I found it necessary, on the facts of this case, to disapply the main PIRC Tables for the dependency claim and instead use the multipliers from Table 3 (see above at [92]).

139 This case concerned a rather unique situation where the court has had to apply the PIRC Tables to concurrent dependency and loss of inheritance claims. These two heads of claims are connected because any dependency claim awarded post-Mr Doney’s retirement will have to be taken from his savings, which in turn would reduce the total amount of savings available to be distributed under the loss of inheritance head of claim (see above at [81(d)], [82(d)], and [119]).

140 I have acknowledged above that Mr Potter’s probability-weighted method using the main set of PIRC Tables would be the most appropriate when quantifying a standalone loss of dependency claim (see above at [86]–[87]). However, when two heads of claim are inextricably linked in this manner, there might be conceptual concerns with applying the probability-weighted method for the dependency claim on the one hand, and the notional age of death method for the loss of inheritance claim on the other.

141 To elaborate, since the finding being made in this case is that Mr Doney would have sustained Mrs Doney until her death, under the probability-weighted method, Mr Doney would hypothetically continue to accrue expenses up to age 100. This would not be an issue in a standalone dependency claim because the application of high discount rates in Mr Doney’s later years would temper the total dependency that is ultimately awarded – ie, a dependency paid out when Mr Doney is aged 100 would be a significantly smaller sum if paid out today. However, under this probability-weighted method it would be difficult, within loss of inheritance calculations, to account for notional expenditures (on dependants) up to age 100 without artificially depressing the loss of inheritance award. I thus consider a loss of inheritance scenario to be one which is more suited to a notional age of death being chosen.

142 Accordingly, it is in my view justifiable, both on a conceptual and at a practical level, for the notional age of death method to be applied for both the dependency and loss of inheritance calculations. My reasons are as follows:

(a) There is no need to adopt the PIRC Tables where the “facts of the case and ends of justice dictate otherwise” (see above at [32]). Logically, this would extend to the disapplication of specific sets of tables within the PIRC Tables. Ultimately, the PIRC Tables are meant to be used as a tool. Oftentimes, they are a handy tool but at the same time, they ought not to be applied as if they were statutory provisions.

(b) For the reasons given above at [141], adopting the same notional age of death method for both heads of claim would be conceptually neater and resolve some of the practical difficulties with calculations that straddle the two heads of claim.

(c) In any event, the sole concern with adopting a notional age of death in the case of the dependency claim is that it would lead to double counting the risk of mortality. However, as I have explained above at [92], this risk is addressed and neutralised by using the multipliers from Table 3 of the PIRC Tables.

(d) Lastly, there is nothing novel with adopting a notional age of death. It was the approach used by authorities, including Franklin Heng, prior to the publication of the PIRC Tables.

143 With that, I turn to address the next issue, which concerns the plaintiffs’ desire to obtain a greater share of the inheritance than that which had passed by intestacy in the proportions set out above at [15].

144 This issue concerns whether damages can be assessed having regard to the possibility that Mr Doney would, but-for the Accident, have made a will in the plaintiffs’ exclusive favour. I will refer to this as the “Will Claim”.

145 It bears repeating that as it stands, Mr Doney died intestate. His estate has been distributed in Australia with a sum of S$292,469 (according to the plaintiffs’ calculations) going to the Adult Children. This sum forms part of the plaintiffs’ claim under their loss of inheritance calculations. ¹⁶⁸

146 The plaintiffs make three broad arguments in support of the Will Claim. First, the evidence supports a finding that Mr Doney would have made a will in their exclusive favour but-for the Accident. ¹⁶⁹ They point out that (a) a few months before the Accident, Mr Doney had allegedly made a living declaration to Mr William that he intended to leave everything to the plaintiffs, and (b) Mrs Doney’s evidence was that Mr Doney had plans to execute his will during his planned trip to Australia in November 2019, but the Accident occurred right before that. ¹⁷⁰ If the court finds that Mr Doney would have made a will in the plaintiffs’ exclusive favour, then the plaintiffs should receive a larger proportion of the inheritance than they otherwise would have under intestacy (which would see the inheritance shared with the Adult Children).

147 Second, the Will Claim satisfies the test of a “reasonable expectation of pecuniary benefit”. The plaintiffs had a reasonable expectation to receive Mr Doney’s inheritance exclusively because during his lifetime he had “directed his finances exclusively for [their] welfare and benefit”. ¹⁷¹

148 Third, the Will Claim is supported by the words of s 22(1A) of the CLA, which is reproduced here for convenience:

The plaintiffs stress that the provision only requires a finding that the deceased would “likely” have made the bequest. This they say is in line with the legislative intent to ensure that the dependants receive savings or inheritance which they “could have received from the deceased”: Singapore Parl Debates; Vol 85, Sitting No 7; Col 1139; [19 January 2009] (Assoc. Prof. Ho Peng Kee, Senior Minister of State for Law). ¹⁷²

149 The plaintiffs further submit that the Will Claim does not require the court to find that Mr Doney created a valid will in their favour, but merely that he would have bequeathed them the Australian Property and his accumulated savings. ¹⁷³

150 I do not think this last submission adds anything to the plaintiffs’ previous submissions. As the defendants took pains to highlight, it is uncontroversial that Mr Doney did not in fact create a valid will – an oral will is invalid under s 6 of the Wills Act 1838 (2020 Rev Ed) (“Wills Act”) unless it falls within one of the enumerated exceptions in s 27 of the Wills Act, none of which apply here. ¹⁷⁴

151 The defendants further highlight that at the time of the Accident, Mr Doney had “not formally consulted a lawyer and/or professional to seek any advice regarding his Estate and the creation of a will”. ¹⁷⁵ An analogy is drawn to Tan Pwee Eng v Tan Pwee Hwa [2010] SGHC 258 (“Tan Pwee Eng”), in which the court ruled a draft will invalid, notwithstanding that the deceased had already instructed professionals to prepare her draft will, and the only thing missing was her signature. The purported beneficiaries in Tan Pwee Eng, the defendants say, stood on better footing than the plaintiffs here because Mr Doney had not even prepared a draft will yet. ¹⁷⁶

152 A claim by dependants such as the Will Claim does not appear to have been previously addressed in Singapore. I consider that the matter should be viewed from two perspectives – first, whether the Will Claim is even conceptually possible; and second, assuming that such a claim is conceptually possible, whether it has been proven on the facts. I find, as discussed below, that even if the Will Claim is conceptually possible, the plaintiffs are not able to prove it on the evidence before me.

153 Assuming that the Will Claim is conceptually possible, the plaintiffs still need to overcome the factual hurdle of proving, with evidence of sufficient probative value, that the Will Claim was sufficiently probable, or “reasonably expected”. This is because the plaintiffs’ claim is, at the end of the day, still founded on s 22(1A) of the CLA, which looks to the likelihood of receiving the benefit as the primary bar to recovery. The need for a reasonable, as opposed to speculative, expectation of benefit can be illustrated by the following cases.

154 Davies v Taylor [1974] AC 207 (“Davies”) concerned a dependency claim by the deceased’s widow. Prior to his death, she had committed adultery and deserted her husband. Her husband was keen on reconciling with her, but she refused his offer. He eventually instructed his solicitor, prior to his death, to institute divorce proceedings against the widow. The widow’s dependency claim failed because there was only a “speculative possibility of reconciliation but not a reasonable expectation of one” (at 219, per Viscount Dilhorne). On the application of the de minimis principle, “speculative possibilities would be ignored” (at 212, per Lord Reid).

155 In Barnett v Cohen [1921] All ER Rep 528 (“Barnett”) a father sought to claim dependency for the death of his four-year-old son. His claim was based on his expectation that his son would provide for him once he turned of age and started making a living for himself. The court rejected the claim as there were too many contingencies – the son’s extreme youth, and the fact that the father was not in good health and may very well have passed at an early age. The father’s claim was “pressed to extinction by the weight of multiplied contingencies” (at 534).

156 Turning to the case at hand, even assuming that the Will Claim advanced by the plaintiffs is a conceptual possibility, I find that the Will Claim cannot succeed on the facts before me. There are just too many evidential difficulties and contingencies in the plaintiffs’ claim to support a reasonable expectation of pecuniary benefit. I would highlight that the “expectation” being evaluated here is not the plaintiffs’ expectation that they would receive some inheritance from Mr Doney – that would certainly have been a reasonable expectation, and that expectation has already been borne out by the share they have received through intestacy. Instead, the “expectation” being evaluated is the plaintiffs’ expectation that Mr Doney would have bequeathed his entire estate to the plaintiffs exclusively. Proving this necessarily requires much more cogent evidence, and which I find is lacking.

157 The fact of the matter is that Mr Doney did not make a will at the time of his death. Mrs Doney has said that he would have done so on his trip to Australia in November 2019, but this is unsupported by documentary evidence of any kind. There is no draft will, much less any indication that Mr Doney had even contacted solicitors in Australia. Mrs Doney confirmed that at the time of the Accident, Mr Doney had not yet received any professional legal advice relating to the distribution of his estate. ¹⁷⁷ Assuming that Mr Doney would have lived another 25 or 30 years but for the Accident, it is extremely difficult to say what his intentions would have been in his later years. McCullough J’s remarks in Adsett v West [1983] QB 826 are apposite here (at 851):

158 I also cannot ignore the possibility, which I do not think is fanciful, that Mr Doney may very well have wished to make some provision for the Adult Children near the end of his life. In my judgment, the Will Claim suffers from too many contingencies. The result is that it must go the same way as the claims in Davies and Barnett. Accordingly, I reject the Will Claim and disallow it. As that is sufficient to dispose of this claim, there is strictly speaking no need for me to come to any definitive conclusion on whether the Will Claim is even conceptually possible to begin with.

159 In summary, these are my findings in relation to the loss of inheritance claim:

(a) On the issue of interest on savings Mr Doney would be able to receive, I find and hold that Mr Doney’s CPF savings would earn compound interest at a rate of about 4.08% per annum – when applied to the calculations, I will apply an interest rate of 2.04% (see above at [128(b)]). As for his personal savings, they will earn simple interest and there is no need to make any further adjustments to reflect this when performing the calculations (see above at [128(a)]).

(b) On the issue of the appropriate multiplier, I have applied a single (unadjusted) multiplier of 0.39 (equivalent to a discount rate of 61%) to the lump sum the plaintiffs are expected to receive as inheritance – this is based on a notional age of death of 85. A further adjustment multiplier of 0.8031 is applied to Mr Doney’s CPF contributions and savings (see above at [137]).

(c) I disallow the Will Claim (see above at [158]).

160 Having regard to my findings in this section (as summarised at [159]), my calculations for the loss of inheritance claim are set out in Annex C of this judgment with some accompanying commentary to explain how some of the components therein have been calculated.

161 Accordingly, the total damages I award for the loss of inheritance claim is S$30,403.09.

162 Thus, the damages awarded to the plaintiffs for the loss of dependency and loss of inheritance claims are:

163 By way of background, the Australian Property had been sold by Monique, the second eldest of the Adult Children and sole administratrix of Mr Doney’s Australian estate, for a sum of A$900,000 (see above at [13]–[14]). Mrs Doney had apparently attempted to retain the Australian Property and was in discussions to purchase it from the estate, but ultimately did not manage to do so. ¹⁷⁸

164 The plaintiffs now seek to hold the defendants responsible for alleged losses arising from the sale of the Australian Property. These losses take two forms:

(a) First, losses arising from the plaintiffs’ inability to use the Australian Property in the intervening years (ie, in the form of rental income).

(b) Second, the loss of the Australian Property’s appreciated value from the time of its sale until 1 October 2024 (the date of commencement of the assessment of damages trial).

165 The arguments relating to the loss of use and loss of appreciation claim can be dealt with together.

166 The plaintiffs submit that these losses are pecuniary benefits which they reasonably expected to receive, but did not, but for Mr Doney’s death. Their case is that:

(a) Mr Doney “intended for the Australian Property to be used exclusively by the Plaintiffs and eventually left to them”. ¹⁷⁹ Mr Doney did not have qualms about giving a property to his first family upon his divorce, and he “would have done so for [the plaintiffs]”. ¹⁸⁰

(b) The Australian Property had been used as a “matrimonial home” by Mrs Doney and Mr Doney, and even after the family moved to Singapore, the plaintiffs had “unrestricted access to and/or benefit” of the Australian Property, including in the form of rental income. ¹⁸¹

(c) Mrs Doney had made financial contributions to the Australian Property in the form of mortgage payments and renovations – she says this indicates “equitable ownership”. ¹⁸²

(d) Mrs Doney attempted to mitigate her losses by matching the price which Monique requested and filing a Family Provision claim in Australia, but she was unable to retain the Australian Property. ¹⁸³

167 As a matter of law, the plaintiffs argue that the loss of the Australian Property was a reasonably foreseeable risk and so was not too remote; they cite the locus classicus, Overseas Tankship (UK) Ltd v The Miller Steamship Co Pty (The Wagon Mound (No 2)) [1967] 1 AC 617. ¹⁸⁴ Further, in this case the egg-shell skull rule, “or a variant thereof” should apply, and the defendants must be responsible for the consequential losses the plaintiffs suffer. ¹⁸⁵ The plaintiffs cite Ho Soo Fong v Standard Chartered Bank [2007] 2 SLR(R) 181 (“Ho Soo Fong”) in support, ¹⁸⁶ where the appellants successfully recovered losses arising from the forced sale of properties due to caveats wrongfully lodged by the respondents.

168 The defendants raise three arguments as to why the loss of use and appreciation claims are untenable:

(a) These claims are losses from Mr Doney’s estate and so are barred by virtue of s 10(3)(c) of the CLA. The Australian Property was held in Mr Doney’s sole name, and so any cause of action in respect of losses arising from the sale of the property would only vest in Mr Doney’s estate. If Mr Doney’s estate cannot first recover these losses by virtue of s 10(3) of the CLA, it would not be logical for the plaintiffs to themselves have any expectation of claiming these benefits. ¹⁸⁷

(b) These claims are pure economic losses in respect of which the defendants do not owe the plaintiffs a duty of care. The defendants apply the test set out in Spandeck Engineering (S) Pte Ltd v Defence Science & Technology Agency [2007] 4 SLR(R) 100 (“Spandeck”), ¹⁸⁸ and argue that it would not be justifiable to impose a duty of care on the defendants in respect of pure economic loss which requires “such an extensive degree of foresight” (ie, as to the loss of use and appreciation of the Australian Property) – this relates to the test of factual foreseeability set out in Spandeck. ¹⁸⁹ Further, there is insufficient legal proximity, ¹⁹⁰ and policy reasons militate against the imposition of a duty of care. ¹⁹¹

(c) These losses are too remote to be recoverable. For the same reasons why there was no factual foreseeability, the losses here are not reasonably foreseeable and are thus too remote. ¹⁹²

169 As a preliminary issue, I briefly address the first two of the defendants’ arguments, which I disagree with. As to the first argument, s 10 of the CLA is not relevant here. Section 10 prohibits a deceased’s estate from recovering certain losses which accrue after the deceased’s passing. The provision was enacted to prevent double recovery which might arise if estate claims for a loss of future earnings could be made simultaneously with dependency claims (which were also calculated with reference to what the deceased might have earned in the future): Law Reform Committee Report at paras 34–35. Consequently, it cannot be the case that s 10 of the CLA not only bars claims made by an estate, but the same claims made by the deceased’s dependants.

170 On the second argument, I do not think Spandeck is applicable at this stage of the matter. Issues pertaining to the defendants’ duty of care have already been fully and finally determined at the liability stage. I am also cautious about importing tortious principles wholesale into a right of action recognised under s 20 of the CLA.

171 To my knowledge, a loss of appreciation claim similar to that brought by the plaintiffs has previously only arisen in Singapore in the case of Armstrong, Carol Ann v Quest Laboratories Pte Ltd [2020] 3 SLR 211 (“Carol Armstrong (HC)”), which both parties made reference to. ¹⁹³ There, the High Court Judge rejected the claim because the claim had been made on the assumption that the deceased would have lived until the age of 82 – an assumption which had been rejected earlier in the judgment (at [39]). On appeal, the Court of Appeal found that the deceased would have lived to his full life expectancy, and so the loss of appreciation claim was remitted to the High Court for its determination, without the Court of Appeal making any comment as to the legal sustainability of such a claim: Carol Armstrong (CA) at [263]. As far as I have been able to ascertain, there has been no further decision arising from this case, and so the point appears to be still undecided in Singapore. The loss of use claim, similarly, does not appear to have been addressed by local precedents, and none were cited to me. Accordingly, both claims fall to be determined according to first principles.

172 In my view, the dependency claims under the CLA are also subject to the usual requirements of causation, remoteness, and mitigation. Both parties have argued on the basis that the damages recoverable in a dependency claim cannot be too remote, ¹⁹⁴ and I am inclined to agree: see, for example, Low Yoke Ying v Sim Kok Lee [1990] 2 SLR(R) 713 at [28].

173 The requirement for a causal connection arises from the language of s 22(1) of the CLA itself, which states:

174 The word “resulting” suggests that the losses must also have been caused by the death or at least causatively flow from the wrongful death caused. In my view, a similar approach was adopted in Ho Soo Fong, where the court held that to claim losses “attributable” to a wrongfully lodged caveat under s 128(1) of the Land Titles Act 1993 (2004 Rev Ed), the losses had to have some causal connection to the act of lodging the caveat (at [26]). The requirement of a causal connection would also import a duty on the plaintiffs to mitigate their losses; in this regard, I note that a duty to mitigate was also found in Ho Soo Fong (at [22]).

175 On the facts before me, I find that the loss of use and appreciation claims fail as they were not caused by the deceased’s death, and the plaintiffs had also failed to mitigate their losses.

176 Before going into my reasons, it is important to lay out the material facts surrounding the disposal of the Australian Property. There are, in my view, three crucial events.

177 First, following Mr Doney’s passing, Mrs Doney was “advised by [Mr Doney’s] parents and Scott Doney to quickly move into the [Australian] Property … without delay”, because it would apparently have been more difficult for the Adult Children to oust Mrs Doney and her family or sell the Australian Property as she was “the legal widow and had certain occupation and first rights over the [Australian] Property”. ¹⁹⁵ Mrs Doney later found out that if she had occupied the Australian Property promptly, she “would have the right of election to acquire the intestate interest in the [Australian] Property at transfer value”. ¹⁹⁶

178 Second, sometime after Mr Doney’s passing and Monique’s appointment as the sole administratrix of Mr Doney’s estate, Monique decided to sell the Australian Property.

179 Third, following Monique’s decision to sell the Australian Property, Mrs Doney entered into discussions with Monique with regard to the possibility of purchasing the Australian Property herself. In an email sent on 11 May 2021, Monique’s solicitor informed Mrs Doney’s solicitor that they had found a potential buyer to purchase the Australian Property for A$900,000; Mrs Doney was requested to respond by 5pm the same day if she wished to match the offer. ¹⁹⁷ Mrs Doney replied to her solicitors the same day indicating her interest. ¹⁹⁸

180 There unfortunately appears to have been a misunderstanding on Mrs Doney’s part, in that although her reply email indicates that it was sent at 4.28pm, this was Singapore time, which was (at that time of the year) two hours behind Australia. ¹⁹⁹ Monique’s solicitors, based in Australia, would have been referring to 5pm local time. Consequently, it appears that Mrs Doney missed the 5pm local time deadline, and the next day Monique’s solicitor replied stating that the sale contract for the Australian Property had already been signed with another party (although no specific reference was made to the deadline having been missed). ²⁰⁰ At trial, Mrs Doney confirmed that she had not made any request for an extension of time. ²⁰¹

181 In my view, these three events were intervening events which stand in the way of the plaintiffs’ claims. The defendants cannot be held liable for the loss of the Australian Property and the consequential loss of use and appreciation claims. I elaborate below.

182 First, Mrs Doney had, on her own evidence, missed out on an opportunity to occupy and acquire the intestate interest in the Australian Property.

183 Second, the decision by Monique to sell the Australian Property was an independent decision of a third party which itself created the “loss”, and for which the law will not generally impose responsibility on the defendants: McGregor on Damages at para 8-121. To illustrate this, one may consider a scenario where Monique did not sell the Australian Property but instead decided to retain and rent it out. In that scenario, the estate as a whole would have benefitted from the subsequent appreciation of the property, as well as from the rental earnings (which overlap with the loss of use claim). In this hypothetical, the plaintiffs would also have benefitted in accordance with the proportion they stood to receive via intestacy. Monique’s decision to sell the Australian Property was thus an additional, intervening, “but-for” cause of the loss of appreciation and use of the Australian Property.

184 Third, Mrs Doney was given the opportunity to acquire the Australian Property for herself but failed to do so due to the missing of the deadline. Mrs Doney did not protect her interests as well as she could have, especially considering how critical the deadline to respond was and in view of her stated intention to purchase the Australian Property at the time. While I am sympathetic to Mrs Doney’s difficulties in the immediate period following Mr Doney’s passing and how this might have affected her handling of the matter, the fact remains that, at the minimum, Mrs Doney’s omission to meet the deadline was a cause of the loss of the Australian Property. If she had been successful, she would have benefitted from the continued appreciation and use of the property. In this scenario, Mrs Doney may still have suffered a “loss” in the sense of having to pay the purchase price to the estate, but this would have ultimately accrued back to her via intestacy – the only “loss” then suffered would have been the portion she had to pay for the Adult Children’s share. However, in view of my finding above that the Will Claim cannot succeed, the defendants should not be required to account for this. I also note that Mrs Doney’s willingness to acquire the Australian Property suggests that there was no financial impediment to her doing so at the material time. ²⁰² Thus, the lapse of the sale ultimately translated into a failure on Mrs Doney’s part to mitigate her and her childrens’ “losses”. It was an unfortunate misstep, but I do not think it fair to now hold the defendants legally responsible for losses flowing from it.

185 For completeness, I note that the plaintiffs have cited two cases to support their contention that these losses were not too remote. These were Pym v The Great Northern Railway Company (1863) 4 B & S 396; [1861-73] All ER Rep 180 and Cape Distribution Ltd v O’Loughlin [2001] EWCA Civ 178 (“Cape Distribution”). ²⁰³ As I have found that the claims fail due to a lack of causation and a failure to mitigate (at [175] and [181]), there is no need for me to make any finding on whether the claims were too remote. It is therefore not necessary for me to deal with these authorities referred to by the plaintiffs.

186 To conclude this issue, any one of the events (at [182]–[184]), taken singly or together, would in my judgment have been sufficient to break the chain of causation. I reiterate that I fully empathise with Mrs Doney’s explanation that she was overcome with grief following Mr Doney’s passing and was thus unable to protect her interests as it related to the Australian Property. ²⁰⁴ Nothing in the preceding analysis is intended to lay blame at her feet. That being said, it would also not be right for me to hold the defendants responsible for opportunities which, in law, Mrs Doney had given up.

187 For these reasons, I disallow the loss of use and loss of appreciation claims. They were not losses “resulting” from Mr Doney’s passing.

188 The final claims relate to the following heads of special damage: ²⁰⁵

(a) Mortgage payments towards the Australian property: A$1,849.50 (converted to S$1,636.40). ²⁰⁶

(b) Legal fees towards the application for Family Provision: A$177,534.60 (converted to S$156,230.45). ²⁰⁷

(c) Legal fees for the Grant of Probate in Australia: A$141,344.20 (converted to S$124,382.90). ²⁰⁸

189 The plaintiffs left this item to the court’s discretion. ²⁰⁹ The defendants submit that there is no basis to allow this claim as it had been paid by Mrs Doney on the basis of a mistaken assumption that she would be entitled to the Australian Property. ²¹⁰

190 I agree with the defendants’ submission and disallow this claim. The mortgage payments were voluntary payments which had been paid on the basis of Mrs Doney’s misapprehension that she was entitled to the Australian Property. I find and hold that they were not losses “resulting” from Mr Doney’s passing.

191 The plaintiffs submit that the Family Provision application was a form of reasonable mitigation in order to obtain a larger share of Mr Doney’s estate. ²¹¹ If Mrs Doney had succeeded, the defendants would have deducted the additional sums received under the Family Provision application from the damages recoverable by the plaintiffs, ²¹² and so Mrs Doney should not be penalised simply because her claim did not succeed. ²¹³

192 The defendants argue that just like the mortgage payment, Mrs Doney’s Family Provision application was a legal risk she decided to take and is accordingly an expense too remote for her to recover from the defendants. ²¹⁴

193 I agree with the defendants that the costs arising from the Family Provision application are also too far removed to be recoverable from the defendants. The plaintiffs’ submission that the Family Provision claim is an attempt at mitigation contains within it the implication that by virtue of obtaining a share of Mr Doney’s estate under the intestacy rules of Queensland, the plaintiffs have suffered some “loss” that is capable of being mitigated (ie, similar in nature to the Will Claim) and costs/expenses were incurred in taking the allegedly mitigatory steps. In my view, it would not be consistent to allow this claim when I have already found above (at [158]) that the Will Claim cannot succeed on these facts. If there is no “loss” in the first place, there can be no mitigation or costs incurred in the course of mitigation to speak of.

194 For this reason, I also disallow and dismiss the claim for costs incurred for the Family Provision application.

195 The plaintiffs also claim the legal fees Mrs Doney has incurred for the Grant of Probate in Australia, amounting to a sum of A$141,344.20. ²¹⁵ This figure was obtained by deducting the sum of A$102,934.60 (incurred for the Family Provision application) from the total liability of Mr Doney’s estate for legal fees, amounting to A$244,278.80. ²¹⁶ Their argument was to simply state that the “legal fees arising from a Grant of Letters of Administration … is typically a given in dependency claims”. ²¹⁷ There was unfortunately no authority cited by the plaintiffs for this proposition.

196 The defendants argue that probate costs are costs associated with the administration of the estate, and are not recoverable by the estate under s 10(3)(c) of the CLA. ²¹⁸ Further, there is a principle that “[c]osts in relation to grants of probate are commonly only allowed if they are deemed necessarily incurred for the prosecution of the action”, but in this case the plaintiffs did not require the grant of probate to commence proceedings against the defendants. ²¹⁹ The case of Thomas (Joseph) v Cunard White Star Ld. The Queen Mary [1951] P 153; [1950] 2 All ER 1157 was cited for this proposition.

197 In reply the plaintiffs point out that they would not have been able to “ascertain and claim the full extent of their losses” without the grant of letters of administration. ²²⁰

198 I agree with the plaintiffs and will allow this claim, but only in a proportion corresponding to what the plaintiffs would have received via intestacy. Under Queensland’s intestacy laws (see above at [14]), the plaintiffs collectively stand to receive a 13/21 share of Mr Doney’s estate. A 13/21 share of A$141,344.20 amounts to A$87,498.79, and I allow the claim for that sum.

199 The plaintiffs submit that Mr Doney’s passing has deprived them of his “mentorship, life coaching, security and much more”. ²²¹ While the plaintiffs have not identified a fixed sum, they ask for these benefits to be accounted for in the final award. ²²² They cite Cape Distribution (referred to above at [185]), where the court found that the widow had not suffered any pecuniary loss but had suffered a loss of the deceased’s experience and skill as it related to the managing of his financial holdings. ²²³ The defendants did not make any submissions on the family benefit claim.

200 Cape Distribution is not exactly relevant as the court ultimately awarded a sum representing the cost of replacing the deceased’s business acumen (at [15]–[16]); an analogy was drawn to claims “in respect of services rendered gratuitously by the deceased” (at [12]–[13]). The plaintiffs’ claims do not relate to tangible services rendered per se (which might be replaced by hiring external help), but more to the intangible benefits derived from the presence of Mr Doney as a husband and father.

201 That said, there appears to be some precedent for similar claims in English law. Historically, non-pecuniary losses have not been permitted under the Fatal Accidents Act 1846 (c 93) (UK) (the historical analogue to our CLA) apart from the statutory exception for bereavement (see McGregor on Damages at para 41-107). There has, however, since been a watering down of this prohibition and English law now recognises what is called the Regan v Williamson award (arising from the case of Regan v Williamson [1976] 1 WLR 305 (“Regan v Williamson”)) which accounts for intangible benefits provided by the deceased to his wife and (young) children: Ana Belen Cacheda Chouza v Artur Mendonca Lopes Martins [2021] EWHC 1669 (QB) at [87]–[88].

202 The exact scope of such an award is, however, unclear. It has been suggested that the Regan v Williamson award compensates for the loss of a deceased’s “love and affection”: Carol Devoy v William Doxford & Sons Ltd [2009] EWHC 1598 (QB) at [79]. On the other hand, there is authority to the effect that no award should be made to encompass the lost “care and attention of the deceased in the emotional sense”, such losses being “exactly the loss that the bereavement award (modest though it is) is intended to compensate for”: Deborah Magill v Panel Systems (DB Limited) [2017] EWHC 1517 (QB) (“Deborah Magill”) at [65].

203 As far as I am aware, the Regan v Williamson award has not yet found its way into Singapore law. As neither party raised any submissions on it, it would not be appropriate for me to make any determination on its applicability without the benefit of full argument.

204 Returning to the present case, the plaintiffs have not provided any indication as to what they deem is an appropriate sum for the deprivation of family benefits. As I noted above, there has been limited engagement on this issue by both sides. The sole authority cited by the plaintiffs, Cape Distribution, does not assist. In the circumstances, I am inclined towards the view held in Deborah Magill that any deprivation of family benefit has already been accounted for in the award for bereavement, as statutorily encapsulated in s 21 of the CLA.

205 For these reasons, I decline to order any additional damages for this head of claim.

206 To summarise, for all the reasons set out above, these are my findings and holdings on each of the issues arising under the various heads of claim advanced by the plaintiffs:

207 Accordingly, the total amount of damages I award to the plaintiffs is as follows:

208 I will hear the parties separately on the questions of interest and costs of the assessment of damages.