What is the test for finding a plaintiff liable for injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident?

Justice Major reaffirmed this thinking in Athey v. Leonati, supra, where he said the rule: …makes the tort feasor liable for the plaintiff’s injuries even if the injuries are unexpectedly severe owing to a pre-existing condition. The tort feasor must take his or her victim as the tort feasor finds the victim, and is therefore liable even though the plaintiff’s losses are more dramatic than they would be for the average person. (Paragraph 34)

On the other hand, Athey v. Leonati, supra, also cautioned as follows: …the essential purpose and most basic principle of tort law is that the plaintiff must be placed in the position he or she would have been in absent the defendant’s negligence (the “original position”). However, the plaintiff is not to be placed in a position better than his or her original one. It is therefore necessary not only to determine the plaintiff’s position after the tort but also to assess what the “original position” would have been. It is the difference between these positions, the “original position” and the “injured position”, which is the plaintiff’s loss. (Paragraph 32)