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Sri Malakappa & Ors. v. The IFFCO Tokio General Insurance Company Limited

Civil Appeal · 2025 INSC 590Decided 29 Apr 2025
Civil Appeal No. 5666 of 2025 (arising out of SLP (C) No. 27391 of 2018)
Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia · Justice K. Vinod Chandran

Background

A woman working as a coolie died two days after being injured as a pillion rider in a motorcycle accident in 2015, leaving behind her husband and two children. The Motor Accident Claims Tribunal fixed her income at Rs. 7,000 per month, deducted one-third for her personal expenses (treating the husband as not dependent since he was able-bodied), added 50% for future prospects, and awarded a total of about Rs. 18.8 lakh. The insurance company appealed, and the High Court raised her assumed income slightly but deleted the future-prospects addition entirely; the claimants then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that since there was no proof the husband was employed, he could not be assumed to be entirely independent of his wife's income, so the family should be treated as four members (reducing the personal-expense deduction from one-third to one-fourth). Following the Constitution Bench ruling in National Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Pranay Sethi, it restored future prospects but capped the addition at 40% (not the Tribunal's 50%) since the deceased was self-employed and under 40. It also held that loss of consortium can be claimed by children, not just a surviving spouse, and awarded Rs. 40,000 to the children on that count. The final recalculated compensation came to about Rs. 17.85 lakh.

Lesson Learnt

Compensation for the death of a family's breadwinner in a motor accident follows fixed legal formulas set by the Supreme Court (capped future-prospects percentages by age and employment type, and a personal-expense deduction based on the true size of the dependent family) and consortium compensation is not limited to spouses but extends to children who lose a parent.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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