SUBBIAH PANICKER Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) There is ample evidence in this case to show that a lorry belonging to the appellant 1st defendant and driven by the employee, the 2nd defendant, in the course of his employment, ran into the rear of a stationary bus belonging to the plaintiff State Government which had stopped on the proper side of the road, namely, the left side, to get down a passenger causing damage to the bus and injury to two passengers in it as a result of which one of them, Kuttan Pillai by name, died in hospital later in the day. The lorry was grossly overloaded, in fact it was carrying twice the weight it was authorised to carry; its brakes were on test found to be defective; and the evidence is that it was driven at excessive speed. All this evidence was entirely uncontradicted, the defendants adducing no evidence whatsoever in proof of their contention that the collision was occasioned by the bus having been abruptly stopped without any manner of warning the oral evidence given by the 1st defendant on this matter is clearly hearsay since he was admittedly not present. It is thus obvious that the accident was caused by the negligence of the 2nd defendant; and, the 2nd defendant's tortious act being in the course of his employment under the 1st defendant, both the defendants are liable in damages to the plaintiff.

(2.) The plaintiff claimed damages under two heads:

(3.) I do not think it was. The payment to Kuttan Pillai's widow was a purely voluntary payment made on compassionate grounds it is not the case of the plaintiff State Government that they were bound by any law to pay it. That being so, it seems to me obvious that there was no causal connection at all between the wrongful act of the defendants and this particular item of damage. The wrongful act of the defendants provided the occasion for, but was not the cause of, the damage. The case seems to fall exactly within the decision in Admiralty Commissioners v. S. S. Amerika (1917 Appeal Cases 38) where the damages claimed were refused on the score of remoteness. With regard to this, Salmond says in his book on Torts, Twelfth Edition at page 739: