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Grant McMillan was driving on the Pacific Highway at Springwood when a his car was struck from behind in August 2017.
McMillan, who was 42 at the time, sued the driver Sharbel Trad in the at-fault accident and her third party insurer Suncorp. He claimed that the crash injured his whole spine and severely worsened a pre-existing chronic pain disorder.
The claimant had been in a similar rear-end accident in in 2002, when he was 26. He suffered a back injury in that collision, developed chronic pain and stopped working from that point.
Records made well before the 2017 crash described spinal pain, difficulty standing for long periods, poor sleep and reliance on significant opioid medication. He had received a Disability Support Pension for substantial periods, including again from mid-2016.
His GP records before the second crash showed neck, upper-back and lower-back pain that was already continuing and, at times, worsening.
Mr McMillan represented himself in a two-day trial in Brisbane’s Supreme Court to recover damages relating to the 2017 accident. He relied in part on a 2024 radiology scan and his own evidence about severe pain and incapacity. He candidly accepted he could not diagnose whether the later collision had caused a new injury or aggravated an old one.
He did not call a medical specialist to give expert evidence on that issue. The two treating doctors he called to testify had not prepared any compliant expert reports. Dr Denton Wade could not determine which components of the reported symptoms were attributable to the 2017 accident. Dr Christian Rowan – an addiction medicine specialist – reasoned that suggestion that further the 2017 but did not state tha tit was likely to have done so.
Suncorp called orthopaedic specialist Professor Peter Steadman and an addiction medicine specialist Philip Crowley to show there was only some minor additional impairment.
The medical records pointed to significant symptomatology before the second accident but did support further neck and lower-back pain after the crash.
Justice Patrick McCafferty concluded he had sustained an exacerbation affecting his cervical and lumbar spine in the form of pain, rather than the whole-spine injury or severe aggravation as was contended for.
The duration of that exacerbation was held to be 14 months as by October 2018 McMillan’s chronic pain symptoms were the equivalent of his pre-accident condition.
With a ‘minor’ assessment for both the cervical-spine and the thoracic/lumbar-spine, an ISV of 5 – for the multiple injuries – was adopted producing an award of $7,400 for general damages.
Mr McMillan also claimed past and future treatment costs. The court allowed $500 for Pregabalin, plus $102.75 interest, because the medication was connected to the 2017 accident. His future expense claim for spinal cord stimulation – for which no evidence was produced to establish any connection to the 2017 crash – was rejected.
The gratuitous-care claim in relation to his wife’s domestic services failed for in the absence of satisfactory details identifying the additional services claimed to have been required as a result of the later crash as as opposed to services performed for the wider household or that were related to pre-existing injuries from the earlier condition.
His total award was $8,002.75.
McMillan v Trad [2026] QSC 108 McCafferty J, 8 June 2026
Categories: Damages