In personal injury cases, novel heads of damage arise from time to time. New technology, advances in science and changing community expectations create a need for courts to consider claims for past and future injury-related expenses and needs that have little by way of precedent to support their recoverability.
The recent decision of the High Court to allow the cost of in-home care in Stewart1 underscores the reality that changing societal circumstances can prompt a reconsideration of expenses such that those once considered unreasonable become appropriate for recovery.
Across Australia, research suggests that 73 per cent of homes have at least one pet and there are an estimated 7.3-7.4 million pet dogs in the country.2
Queensland tops the charts with the highest proportion of households with a pet dog at 52 per cent (the Northern Territory is next with 51 per cent and the ACT is the proverbial caboose with only 43 per cent of households hosting a pet canine).
The popularity of the pooch has seen some airlines begin to allow seats for pups, and a proliferation of assistance animals in supermarkets, shopping centres and public venues. The NDIS will even fund assistance animals where they meet their “reasonable and necessary” test.3
With such a groundswell of support for mutts and mongrels that can alleviate anxiety and provide comfort, it highlights this question – will the cost associated with keeping support and assistance animals become a regular feature of the damages schedules handed over by Plaintiff lawyers at the outset of settlement discussions?
There is little doubt that the cost of keeping a “seeing eye dog” will be recoverable where the compensable injury includes blindness, but where the animal supports a psychological condition, there has been some conjecture.
Until the High Court clarified the law in Stewart,4 the “rule” in Sharman v Evans5 appeared to require a balancing of the health benefits to the plaintiff, against the cost to the defendant. That “rule” of course, has been shelved following Stewart. Now, the court, in assessing damages, will be concerned with the question of whether the expense claimed is a “reasonable means of repairing the consequences of the tort”.6
Just as the availability of in-home care for NDIS recipients, no doubt influenced the High Court in Stewart, so too I suspect, will the advent of “assistance dogs” for NDIS recipients. Historically, caring for a pet or maintaining a hobby has not always been seen as strictly recoverable.7
A similar view was taken in Schofield v Hopman & Anor8 – because it was thought that a principle used in Griffiths v Kerkemeyer should not be used by way of analogy to extend an award of damages in any case where its use is not covered by authority.9
On the other hand, care provided to pets was considered “an inherent part of the concept of domestic assistance” in Teuma v CP & PK Judd Pty Ltd (though not awarded on the evidence),10 and care in the form of feeding pets had been allowed in Weaver v Endeavour Foundation.11
In the UK, however, in Sandra Mehmetemin v Craig Farrell the court awarded damages for the value of the three and a half hours per week spent by the claimant’s husband in walking her dogs.12
While once care provided to an injured person in looking after a pet often fell outside recoverable boundaries in a gratuitous care claim, the NSW Supreme Court has recently ruled it recoverable as “attendant care” under the NSW motor accident insurance scheme.13
Recently, the ACT Court of Appeal considered an award of damages for dog ownership where the trial judge had found that an allowance should be made in damages for the costs of keeping a dog.
In Tipping v Meas (by his litigation guardian Adcock)14 the trial judge had found that the brain-injured plaintiff would benefit from the “things that pet ownership and personal training provide: in the case of a pet, a need for companionship, structure and responsibility and for prompting to leave the house regularly”.15
An award was made in a sum of $20,353.80, after discounting by 40 per cent for the prospect that the expense might not be incurred. On appeal, however, the award was overturned but it was acknowledged that in an appropriate case, it would be compensable.
In her judgement, McCallum CJ found that; “I have accordingly concluded that the pet allowance should not have been included in the award, not so much because it is not reasonably necessary but because it is impractical and would give rise to other needs. It is important to note that a different conclusion might be reached in a different case, if a plaintiff had an established capacity to care for a support animal and there was evidence of the likely benefit of having one.”16
The provisions of the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act 1992 require only very loosely defined criteria for a dog to be an assistance animal. Under sec 9(2) it is sufficient if the animal is trained:
(i) to assist a person with a disability to alleviate the effect of the disability; and
(ii) to meet standards of hygiene and behaviour that are appropriate for an animal in a public.
If the keeper of the animal has a relevant disability, then their “pet” attains an elevated status and can adventure in places that other animals are precluded from visiting – ostensibly to provide comfort and support to their keeper.
Against this background – and the removal of the Sharman v Evans calculus – it seems inevitable that in future, awards for the cost of keeping assistance animals will be as common as claims for the expense of home modifications or paid care. Move over engineers, forensic accountants and medical specialists; there is now a seat at the expert table for canine oracles and vets in personal injury cases!
Footnotes
1 v Metro North Hospital and Health Service [2025] HCA 34.
2 Animal Medicines Australia, Pet Ownership in Australia: 2025 Study (Report, 2025). <https://animalmedicinesaustralia.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/SNR-2403006-Pet-Ownership-Study-2025-Designed_F3.pdf>.
3 National Disability Insurance Agency, Assistance Animals Explained (Web Page). <https://www.ndis.gov.au/participants/assistive-technology-explained/assistance-animals>.
4 See at [48] – [52].
5 (1977) 138 CLR 563 at [573]-[574] (Gibbs and Stephens JJ).
6 Stewart v Metro North Hospital and Health Service [2025] HCA 34 at p 4.
7 Geaghan v D’aubert (2002) 36 MVR 542; [2002] NSWCA 260.
8 [2017] QSC 297.
9 CSR v Eddy [2005] HCA 64.
10 [2007] NSWCA 166 at [98].
11 [2013] QSC 93.
12 [2017] EWCH 103 QB.
13 Insurance Australia Limited t/as NRMA Insurance v Chowdhury [2025] NSWSC 1392.
14 [2026] ACTCA 12.
15 see [120]-[122].
16 At [81].
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