Married daughters also entitled for compensation: Karnataka High Court
Bengaluru(PTI): The Karnataka High Court has held that married daughters are entitled for compensation by insurance companies on the loss of their parents in accidents.
The HC said the Supreme Court has held that married sons are also entitled for compensation in such cases.
"This Court also cannot make any discrimination whether they are married sons or married daughters and hence, the very contention that married daughters of deceased are not entitled for compensation cannot be accepted," it said.
The HC single judge bench of Justice H P Sandesh heard an appeal filed by an insurance company challenging the award of compensation to married daughters of one Renuka (aged 57) who was killed in an accident on April 12, 2012 near Yamanur, Hubballi, in north Karnataka.
Renuka's husband, three daughters and a son had sought compensation. The Motor Accident Claims Tribunal had awarded a compensation of Rs 5,91,600 with six per cent annual interest to the family members.
The insurance company had challenged this in the HC contending that married daughters could not claim compensation, and also that they were not dependents. Therefore, awarding compensation under the head 'loss of dependency' was wrong. It was claimed by the insurer that compensation was to be awarded only under 'loss of estate.'
The HC, however, said that dependency does not only mean financial dependency. Even if the dependency is a relevant criterion to claim compensation for loss dependency, it does not mean financial dependency is the 'ark of the covenant'.
Dependency includes gratuitous service dependency, physical dependency, emotional dependency, and psychological dependency, which can never be equated in terms of the money, it said.
Other contentions of the insurance company including doubts about the age of the deceased, and her income were also rejected by the court. A warranty card for a sewing machine purchased by the deceased came in handy for the Tribunal to calculate her income at Rs 4,500 per month.
The HC rejected the contention of the insurer that exorbitant compensation had been awarded by the Tribunal, and dismissed its appeal.
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Los Angeles county wildfires could be costliest in US history, early estimates say
Los Angeles, Jan 11: The wildfires that erupted this week across Los Angeles County are still raging, but already are projected to be among the costliest natural disasters in US history.
The devastating blazes have killed at least 11 people and incinerated more than 12,000 structures since Tuesday, laying waste to entire neighbourhoods once home to multimillion-dollar properties.
While it's still too early for an accurate tally of the financial toll, the losses so far likely make the wildfires the costliest ever in the US, according to various estimates.
A preliminary estimate by AccuWeather put the damage and economic losses so far between USD 135 billion and USD 150 billion. By comparison, AccuWeather estimated the damage and economic losses caused by Hurricane Helene, which tore across six southeastern states last fall, at USD 225 billion to USD 250 billion.
“This will be the costliest wildfire in California modern history and also very likely the costliest wildfire in US modern history, because of the fires occurring in the densely populated areas around Los Angeles with some of the highest-valued real estate in the country,” said Jonathan Porter, the private firm's chief meteorologist.
AccuWeather factors in a multitude of variables in its estimates, including damage to homes, businesses, infrastructure and vehicles, as well as immediate and long-term health care costs, lost wages and supply chain interruptions.
The insurance broker Aon PLC also said Friday that the LA County wildfires will likely end up being the costliest in US history, although it did not issue an estimate. Aon ranks a wildfire known as the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, in 2018 as the costliest in US history up to now at USD 12.5 billion, adjusted for inflation. The Camp Fire killed 85 people and destroyed about 11,000 homes.
The LA County wildfires, which were fuelled by hurricane-force Santa Ana winds and an extreme drought, remained largely uncontained Saturday. That means the final tally of losses from the blazes is likely to increase, perhaps substantially.
“To put this into perspective, the total damage and economic loss from this wildfire disaster could reach nearly 4 per cent of the annual GDP of the state of California,” AccuWeather's Porter said.
In a report Friday, Moody's also concluded that the wildfires would prove to be the costliest in US history, specifically because they have ripped through densely populated areas with higher-end properties.
While the state is no stranger to major wildfires, they have generally been concentrated in inland areas that are not densely populated. That's led to less destruction per acre, and in damage to less expensive homes, Moody's noted.
That's far from the case this time, with one of the largest conflagrations destroying thousands of properties across the Pacific Palisades and Malibu, home to many Hollywood stars and executives with multimillion-dollar properties. Already, numerous celebrities have lost homes to the fires.
“The scale and intensity of the blazes, combined with their geographic footprint, suggest a staggering price tag, both in terms of the human cost and the economic toll,” Moody's analysts wrote. The report did not include a preliminary cost estimate of the wildfire damage.
It could be several months before a concrete tally of the financial losses from the wildfires will be possible.
“We're in the very early stages of this disaster,” Porter said.
