Gomathi Ammal and Others vs Ramchandran Pillai and Another

Venkatadri, J.—This is an appeal preferred by the widow, sons and daughters of M.S. Seshadri Sarma against an order of compensation awarded to them, in a sum of Rs. 3600, for causing the death of Seshadri Sarma by the first Respondent, whose motor cycle was insured with the second Respondent, the Oriental Fire and General Insurance Co. Ltd. Not satisfied with the amount of compensation, the legal representatives of Seshadri Sarma have filed the present appeal for the enhancement of the compensation.

The Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, Tiruchirapalli (District Judge) found that the accident happened only because of the rash and negligent act on the part of the first Respondent, the owner of the motor cycle. He also found that the compensation amount which he fixed at Rs. 3600, was payable by the second Respondent insurance company.

At the time of the accident, the deceased was aged 63. He was practicing as an advocate in Tiruchirapalli, specializing in the work connected with trade marks. On the materials placed before the Tribunal, it was found that the deceased would have been earning about Rs. 500 per mensem. He was maintaining two establishments one at Coimbatore where his wife and younger children were residing, and the other at Tiruchirapalli where he was carrying on his professional activity. The deceased has left a residential house at Coimbatore worth about Rs. 50,000. The Tribunal fixed a sum Rs. 150 per month as the probable amount required for the maintenance of the deceased''s family. The Tribunal calculated the expectation of life of the deceased as two more years, as he had already reached 63 at the time of his death. On that basis, the Tribunal awarded compensation in a sum of Rs. 3,600/-. In this appeal, the widow and children have questioned the legality of estimating or appraising or computing the amount of compensation arrived at by the Tribunal.

Lord Wright in Davies v. Powell Duffryn Associated Collieries Ltd. 1942 A.C. 601 (617) said:

There is no question here of what may be called sentimental damage, bereavement or pain and suffering. It is a hard matter of pound, shillings and pence, subject to the element of reasonable future probabilities. The starting point is the amount of wages which the deceased was earning, the ascertainment of which to some extent may depend on the regularity of his employment.

The question of assessing compensation becomes often a complicated and difficult task, especially when the deceased happens to be a professional man like the deceased in this case. The Courts have, in recent cases recognised that, under the present conditions, most professional men continue to work till the age of 70 or more. Lord Goddard in Zinoyeff v. British Transport Commission (page 61 of the Quantum of Damages by Kemp Vol. 2) while considering the quantum of damages to be awarded to the deceased, who was aged 46 at the time of the accident and who was consulting Engineer and a partner in a well-known firm and whose professional income in the year before his death was �4750 and his contribution to his family was �2300 a year, was asked to assume that the working life of the deceased would end at the age of 60. In this connection Lord Goddard, C. J. said:

Amongst other things which one has to remember is that owing to the incidence of heavy taxation, few people are fortunate enough in these days to be able to save or to make any provision for their family, and the only way in which a professional man can go on-providing for his wife and himself and any members of the family who may be dependent upon him, is to continue to work ; consequently, I think many people tend to continue to work now a good deal longer than they did before. A man cannot rely upon his savings nowadays because he finds it impossible to save ; and in any case, using one''s common everyday experience, one knows that it is nothing unusual for a man to go on working until he is 70, or, indeed, rather longer.

Finally, the noble Lord assessed the damages in a round sum of �33,000.

A Division Bench of this Court in Indian Mutual General Insurance Society v. M. Kathandian Naidu (1966) 1 M.L.J. 113 : 78 L.W. 677 : 1966 A.C.J. 62, while considering the quantum of compensation to be awarded to the Plaintiff who was aged 52, when he lost his son aged 11 held that the father would be entitled to compensation on the basis that he would live till his 70th year. In Balukrishna v. Sadasivaraju AIR 1960 Mys 106 a Division Bench of Mysore High Court held that the three years rule adopted by the District Judge was utterly inadequate and that he should also have capitalized the pension. In the instant case, I am of the opinion that the assessing of the amount of compensation on the basis that the deceased would have lived only for two years more does not appear to be correct. It is true that it is very difficult to assess and calculate the compensation to be awarded to the legal representatives of the deceased. Visccunt Simon has stated the general principles that should govern in the calculation of the pecuniary loss to the dependents of the deceased, in Nance v. British Columbia Electric Railway Co. Ltd. 1951 A.C. 601. These principles have been restated by their Lordships of the Supreme Court in Gobald Motor Service Ltd. and Another Vs. R.M.K. Veluswami and Others, thus:

...at first the deceased man''s expectation of life has to be estimated having regard to his age, bodily health and the possibility of premature determination of his life by later accidents; secondly, the amount required for the future provision of his wife shall be estimated having regard to the amounts he used to spend on her during his lifetime, and other circumstances ; thirdly, the estimated annual sum is multiplied by the number of the man''s estimated span of life, and the said amount must be discounted so as to arrive at the equivalent in the form of a lump sum payable on his death. Therefore, the actual extent of the pecuniary loss to the Respondents may depend upon data which cannot be ascertained accurately, but must necessarily be an estimate, or even partly a conjecture.

In the instant case, the deceased, who was a professional man earning more that Rs. 300/- at the time of the accident, would have lived and carried on his professional activities for more than ten years.

He had a big family. He had two daughters to be married. Except for the residential house in Coimbatore, he had not left behind any property worth the name. Naturally, he would have had to work hard and continue to do work, in order to provide for his wife, for himself and the other members of the family dependent upon him. The deceased came from a respectable middle class family. His father retired as a Deputy Collector. His brother-in-law is a retired D.M.O. The point is whether the ancestral house in Coimbatore should be taken into consideration, while assessing compensation to be awarded to the legal representatives of the injured man. In Grand Trunk Railway of Canada v. Jennings 13 A.C. 800 the Privy Council held that where a deceased person had left sums of money in some form, or other substantial sums of money which went to the widow, they had to be taken into consideration, in deciding the widow''s pecuniary loss, what was described as the acceleration of the payment to herself of what her husband left her as the result of his premature death. But this view was not approved in later cases, e.g. Bouchand v. Railway Executive (1940) 65 T.L.R. 435 where it was observed that it was a grisly way of looking at things to say that a widow benefited from her husband''s premature death because she received what he proposed to leave her. Therefore the fact that he had left a substantial house worth Rs. 50,000 should not be taken into consideration, while assessing the quantum of compensation to be awarded. It is in evidence that the deceased was a bronchitis patient and that he was coughing for several years. But there is no reason why he should not live for many more years. In fact the brother-in-law of the deceased who is himself a retired D.M.O. has not been cross-examined on the point whether a bronchitis patient would not live long. In the absence of any evidence to the contra and taking a comprehensive view of the facts of the case, it seems to me that it is just and reasonable to award compensation in a sum of Rs. 20,000/-, calculated on the basis that a person like the deceased would live for more than 70 years. The principles on which an appellate Court would interfere with an award of damages made by a Judge are perhaps best stated in a well-known passage in Flint v. Lovell (1935) 1 K.B. 354 (360):

In order to justify reversing the trial Judge on the question of the amount of damages it will generally be necessary that this Court should be convinced either that the judge acted upon some wrong principle of law, or that the amount awarded was so extremely high or so very small as to make it, in the judgment of this Court an entirely erroneous estimate of the damage to which the Plaintiff is entitled.

In this case, the sum of Rs. 3,600/-awarded as compensation appears to be too low, for a man of the status of the deceased, having a large family dependent upon him for that living, and also where, under the present conditions, most professional men like the deceased continue to work till the age of 70 and more. Further, one has also to take into account the real value of. money, the purchasing power of money. In Sands v. Devan 1945 S.C. 38 Lord Norman said: "Since we must perforce measure the damage in money, we must, I think, take account of large and relatively permanent variations in the value of money."

In the same case Lorn Monerieff said:

As regards what falls to be paid in money, the Court must take note of the changes in the value of money.

The rupee value has gone down considerably. Thus, taking into account that the deceased was an Advocate earning more than Rs. 300, that he came from a respectable middle class family, that he had to provide for a big family, that still a son had to be educated and two daughters to be got married, I think a sum of Rs. 20,000 awarded to the Appellants would be neither too high nor too low.

Lastly, we come to the question of apportionment of the amount of compensation. The first two sons of the deceased, N.S. Ramamurthi and N.S. Krishnamurthi, are well settled in life, the first is a Technical Information Officer in Bhilai and the second is an Assistant in the Government of India, New Delhi. In their case, there is no dependency which warrants their having anything. The last son is a student. The daughters are still to be married. In the circumstances, the sum of Rs. 20,000/-would be allocated as follows: Rs. 5000/-for each of the two daughters as their marriage provision; and Rs. 10,000/- for the wife of the deceased and his last son N.S. Balasubramanian, till he gets an employment, for their maintenance. The compensation amount is payable by the Insurance Company.

In the result, the appeal is allowed; but there will be no order as to costs.