Insurer has to compensate kin of driver who died while sleeping inside lorry: K'taka HC
Bengaluru, Sep 21: Disposing an appeal filed in 2010, the High Court of Karnataka has ruled that the driver of a lorry who died while sleeping inside the vehicle due to a heart attack, was still entitled to the compensation payable by insurer of the vehicle.
Eranna, a lorry driver, had died at Idya village near Suratkal where he had halted the vehicle and was sleeping. He died of cardiac arrest which the subsequent post-mortem report proved.
The insurance company claimed that he had "died due to cardiac failure and not due to accidental death and he was taking intoxicated drugs, which is not covered under the policy", and hence it was not liable to pay the compensation.
Dismissing this contention, the HC said: "Usage of the vehicle does not mean that at the time of his death he need not necessarily drive the vehicle, but in casual connection of his employment he was sleeping in the lorry."
"While taking rest he suffered heart attack and hence, very contention of insurance company cannot be accepted that it is not liable to pay the compensation," the court said.
The National Insurance Company had approached the High Court against the order of the Commissioner for Workmen Compensation, Bagalkote. In his order on August 20, 2009, the Commissioner had awarded a compensation of Rs 3,03,620 to the wife and three minor children of the deceased, payable by the insurance company.
The judgement delivered by Justice H P Sandesh recently pointed out that Eranna "was sleeping in the vehicle itself and the fact that he was working the very same day is not in dispute and the owner has also admitted that he died during the course of employment."
Citing an earlier judgement of the HC, the court said that "driving job is undoubtedly a tension filled job, particularly, to cope up with present day traffic and other things. There cannot be any presumption that even when a person dies while actually working in the job that his death may not be due to employment, but may be due to something else. Such presumption is nothing short of a perversity."
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Death toll from Israeli strikes in northeast Lebanon rises from 8 to 24, Lebanese news agency says
Deir al-Balah, Nov 1: Israeli airstrikes on Friday killed at least 24 people in northeastern Lebanon, the country's news agency said, raising the death toll from eight there.
It was the latest deadly toll in the area since the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah escalated last month.
Israel's military has said that its operation in Lebanon is targeting Hezbollah's military infrastructure.
Lebanon's state National news Agency reported four airstrikes in different villages across country's northeast, saying rescuers were still searching for survivors in Younine, a town in the Bekaa Valley, from the rubble of a targeted house.
Hussein Haj Hassan, a Lebanese lawmaker representing the region in Baalbek-Hermel region, said that 60,000 people have already fled their homes in the area due to Israeli bombardment.
